Greatest Price
by DreamEscape16
Summary: How far will Steve go to save Bucky when a dark hex of HYDRA divides them? Will he be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his friend? (Co-written by: Thalion Estel)
1. Chapter 1

**Stray Ghosts**

**All Captain America characters belong to Marvel Comics**

**I own nothing.**

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><p>It was a somber evening; the autumn moon was the color of pumpkin in the misty sky. Leaves twirled under the glow of streetlamps mounted on the corners, his steel azure eyes caught the shadows looming in the dark cervices of vacant back parking lots and alleys. This was Halloween night, but Bucky had lost all the memory of his childhood, wearing makeshift costumes and enjoying time with a friend.<p>

He trudged in hush and methodical strides, gloved hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket, warring at the sleeves. His shoulder length dark waves of hair tucked under a brimmed baseball cap; strands swathed over his neck and touched the collar of his jacket.

He looked displaced, lost without reason and starving for the truth of his existence. He was restless. His body battered, dark circles hung under his intense and fierce blue eyes and his complexion were smudged with bruises and ashen.

He wore the appearance of a condemned ghost, haunting the streets with his intimating presence, always evoking terror to anyone brave soul who dared a glance at his menacing face. He wanted a reason to live again, and not become struck in a void of forgotten memories.

Keeping himself in silent dome, he shuffled his way down the littered filled street. His wolfish blue eyes glinted under the caress of moonlight; he listened to a familiar sound. Children laughing with friends, he paused in his tracks, and systematically roved his unyielding stare around clusters of brownstone buildings, decorations of dark shapes hanging in windows, pumpkins carved with scary faces and holding a warm candle in their hollow shells. He blinked, just staring at the jack-o-lanterns, imaging the melting candles as souls that would fade out into the night. He felt like one of those pumpkins his glare had fixed on, his disheveled body gutted out, flesh carved by drills and saws and his soul, flickering in the darkness.

Noises of traffic jostled his bones, and he tore his gaze away, and shifted his body in front of a storefront window. Heaving out a deep breath, he looked at the illusion of a young man caught in reflection. Despite his clean shaven jaw and full lips, he still carried the appearance of a menacing, lethal wraith. Growling up his throat, he withdrew a step back, metal hands clenched and eyes wrenched away. He shook his head, feeling a wave of anxiety crept over him. He kept on walking backwards, not paying attention to his surroundings, and then he pressed his massive bulk into iron bars of a creaking gate. He whipped his head around, and stared intently at the ominous cemetery. A sanctuary for the dead to rest.

He wanted to rest.

Pushing the gate with the force of his metal hand, Bucky thumped his boots on the crushed stone. A nefarious sense of dread crawled in his veins, but he ignored those stirrings and thumped his combat boots over the blades of grass. He drifted in front of oval and obelisk headstones, cracked with grime and neglect.

He locked a murderous glare on an empty grave, only a few decaying flowers stuck out of the untouched earth. Blankly staring at the spot, he cautiously loomed in ghostly steps, his shadow danced over the stone markers. He was so in focus with his destination that he did not a pumpkin in front of him, he only heard the smashing of his boots turn the gourd into mush.

An ear shattering scream cringed through his bones, jarring his attention, Bucky whirled around, his hat fall to the ground, and he removed his combat knife, gripping the handle with his gloved hand. He listened with his acute sense of hearing, to the moaning of a victim rustling through the barren trees. Undaunted, he advanced in a slow maneuver of his footing, his eyes changeless to the darkness.

He approached like a stalking wolf, craving for the thrill of the hunt, but then he froze and narrowed a passive gaze at a small dark form sprawled in front of a grave. It was a black cat, lifeless and battered with a small pink tongue hanging out of its mouth. He inspected the dead animal and looked back and forth, but there was no one else in sight. He could smell the essence of blood thickening in the dense air.

Feeling a tug on his heart, Bucky gently stroked his alloy fingers over the ebony fur of the feline, and tears prickled in his intent blue eyes. He was at an impasse, clenching his jaw and stared at the animal as if he grieved for it. He crashed to his knees, laden on the ground, and pounded his metal fist into the grass, his metal fingers smeared with mud as he broke his lips open and unleashed a cry of anguish. He screamed and felt his nose crinkled at the smell of terror and death blanketing over his broken form. He was tired of staring at the grim shrouds of death, and the excruciating pain that scorched in his bones and made him feel like his blood melted inside his veins.

Little fragments of memory emerged out of his mind; scattered images become pieces of a stolen life-there was a condemning sense, and he felt it encase over his bones. His eyes fixed on the murdered animal and hand scooped the body into a nest of his broad arms, he cradled the cat against his chest. Shaft of amber light gathered in the depth of temperance blue-he had no idea why he accepted humanity back into the rifts of his tormented soul and how he responded to the stray with gentleness of a child.

A racking cough echoed in the darkness, Bucky whirled around and scanned his intense eyes over the clusters of graves-an old woman was standing underneath the umbra of the contorted branches of the tree with a displeased look written on her face.

Pressing his thumb over the handle of his weapon, Bucky's death glare met her blackish eyes, and he stood frozen as his heart pounded concurrent thuds against his chest. He glinted at the craggy woman with his feverish and daunting blue eyes at her as confusion settled within the ridges of his bones.

She crept forward with a stern look on her aging face; gravity about her caused him to withdraw a step back, his knife raised to his shoulder.

"Poor little thing ran away from me. I warned her not to leave, but I blame her stubbornness." She glared at the cat nestled in Bucky's arms.

"I didn't mean to pick up the cat," Bucky replied in a deep, raspy voice, clearing his perched throat and his lips twisted into am uneven line. He realized that he was stammering out his words, and blurting out irreverence's to her. Carefully he lowered himself to his knees and placed the cat on the ground. "I thought it was still alive." he stammered.

The woman coldly glowered at his knife, and pressed her wrinkled lips into a grimace. The limp paw of the feline moved and dug claws into his exposed flesh; Bucky wrenched his hand back, instantly rubbing the coldness of his metal hand over the marred skin. "You are a liar," she snarled, clamping her teeth at him. "You think that I'm dumb. I know you killed my cat. You carry the murder weapon in your hand." Her words spat out with an abrasive tone, and bones crackled underneath the layers of her frail skin. "Murder is a crime against humanity."

Bucky furrowed his eyebrows into firm crease, "Humanity?" he parroted, with a sluggish ting in his baritone. He narrowed his widened eyes back to the cat and recollection dawned on him. "Wait...Are you saying..." He couldn't finish his words as the woman circled around him like a coiling serpent, and she reached over the cat, and pressed a kiss on the vacant animal's head, "I didn't kill your cat!" he digressed out a fierce growl ragging from the depth of his throat.

"It doesn't matter, a life has been taken and blood spilled on your hands. You are guilty." she lashed with a vicious timbre, and dug her fingers into the cat's chest, sharp nails broke through fur and tissue as she advanced closer to him, and made the body hover over his head.

"You can't fight for your soul because haven't got one." she coldly sneered, watching his expression from dismal underneath the obscurity of his long brown hair and she added, "You have been immobilized for the transcendence of a new life." she condemned and made the blood leak aimlessly out from the hole she created and watched it drip over his forehead.

Bucky seethed out an angry breath, pushing her knee out with direct force of his metal hand, he relished the sound of the socket pop and then swiveled his blade and jabbed it deep, and hard into the calf bone.

"Get away from me," he bellowed at in menacing voice, but then something wormed through his veins, clotting his blood with heat. He was blanching in pain, tucking his metal arm over his chest, hoping to crawl away from her inhuman stare of black coal bearing down at him, but his slender frame automatically became rigid as he went on his hands and knees when she seized his long strands of dark hair, inclining his head up with a violent jerk. He blinked his eyes livid and burning with intensity of molten azure. His rounded pupils changed into diamond slits once the moonlight retracted over his irises. One hiss erupted out of him.

"Black cats are symbols of death and shadow. It is said from ancient times that lost souls become trapped in vessels of disheveled creatures." The woman spoke in a sadistic whisper. "When a soul is taken in cold blood the hunter of prey will share the fate of the one he has slain." Bucky opened his mouth to protest, but again nothing clear escaped from his quivering lips. It was just a strangled cry of a tortured beast. He choked as he realized what he sounded like.

"No," he managed to say in an intermixed sound of a distressed mewl. She was merciless to his suffering, and coiled her bony fingers around his thick neck. He had begun to claw at her, hissing and thrashing his body, until she released the hold off his throat.

"Once the rebirth comes in full effect, you will be given a chance for redemption on your soul. A friend that cares for your human existence can be the one that will grant you freedom. Only a true friend can hear your voice when others cannot."

She turned her head, looking at two small black shapes wobbling in the grass. A dark smirk twisted on her lips. She dropped the cat next to her victim, and moved swiftly on her heels, grabbing the meowing forms in the clutch of her hands. "These fur balls are worthless to keep without their mother. They will destroyed humanly as I can give. " She locked her devilish eyes on Bucky. " You will rot in this body until death come to claim you. If you're friend hasn't discover your true existence beyond fur-then he will join you." "

Bucky glared dangerously at the squirming kittens in her arms, and gritted through his shavings of pointed teeth turning into small fangs. Hatred veiled over his blue eyes, defiance burning within the razor depth of azure, "You're a sick..." he couldn't finish, his tongue suddenly became laden against the roof of his mouth.

"This is fate worse than death, boy." she snapped, crouching to his level and placed the wobbling kitten's inches in front of his transforming body.

"SHUT UP!' He roared against the thrall of the painful transfiguration jolting through his bones, his deep voice decreasing into a cry of a feline. He staggered inches away from her shadow, but he was slowly feeling the bond of his soul attaching to his new form. His sculpted nose broke and contorted into his face, twisting the bones of his cheeks into a muzzle.

He screamed out anguish cries, blood dripped out from the corners of his mouth as the crackling noises of his bones erupted under the layers of his clothes. He was suffocating and his blue irises burned with fever. He dug his gloved fingers into the earth, feeling the pull of his bones as his body mass begun to shrink. He felt like his falling into a void as the ground shook around, his heart increasing speed, and organs entwining and hot tears departing heavily over his jaw.

"I think you will adapt faster than my other victims. Pathetic souls that disobeyed my orders."

Bucky couldn't respond and he couldn't bring himself to retort back at her. Whatever unnatural and evil calamity that the woman had placed into him now began to fully take hold of his mortality. His face became frozen like a statue in a semblance of a painful and irritable grimace. The pain wormed through his veins, clotting in his blood. He cried out in pain, sucking back a sharp intake of air as if a noose was coiled around his throat. He felt bile flow against his straining stomach and skin inched and grew hot. His voice was a captive in his vocal cords.

His widened blue eyes gazed down at his hands, at his arms, his legs…

"This can't be happening to me," He felt himself thrashing violently, harsh and lament whines escaped from his mouth.

Stiffening, Bucky doubled over on his back, his hands dangled into the air as he watched in horror tiny sliver digits tear through the leather tips of his gloves-claws, he had metal claws emerging from his bionic limb. His hands reshaped and decreased in size. Panting out labored patterns of breath, he groaned and jerked when he felt his skull shrinking, and his ears sharpened into triangle and messed his long strands as they moved to the dome of his head, but not just his ears -a painful tugging sensation over his firm backside drew his attention as he arched his back slightly off the ground, and listened with revulsion as his pants tore and a long black tail snaked out of his pants.

It was a cat's tail-he was becoming a cat. "NO!" he screeched out, his voice dying into a sound of a distressed feline. "I don't want this. Damn you!"

"Scream all you want, nothing will save you," she sneered, watching in mirth as the handsome soldier bellowed out in torment as his body shrunk in horrific intertwines of muscle, bones and screams. Bucky Barnes-the Winter Soldier-the deadliest assassin, combatant and ageless wraith was transforming into a stray cat. A small and worthless beast that prowled the streets and searched for a home. A weak animal that would be concerned about hunting for rodents in trash cans, craving milk and purring for attention from humans. The cat's will had taken over his emotions and he was sensing the wander lust to mate with a female.

Bleeding, his clothing hung and torn, Bucky watched helplessly as the transcendence of his new life continued. His graven muscles heaved under his jacket, his unseen pectorals grew thinner and coated with soft ebony fur. His limbs remained laden on the ground and decreased into short frontal and hind legs. The metal plates of his arm rejoined with his new body. He hissed in pain and disgust when he chanced a glare at the motherless kittens. He crawled towards him, feeling the instinct to nuzzle his face against them. He managed to give the little female a nudge, fighting over his humanity, but focused on protecting them. His mission.

His handsome and well-sculpted face changed into a cat's visage, his skeletal structure and his organs. He could see everything in the dark, almost as clear as day and smell the staleness in the air reeking off of the witch. He knew she was danger, he crinkled his muzzle into a scowl and hissed at her, shielding the kittens with his reshaping body, his shoulder-length hair shortened and intermixed with the black fur cloaking over his drenched skin and more squirming and twitching ran rapidly through his body, until it was done.

Where once the feral and intimidating Winter Soldier had been, now sat a black cat with a brown mane swathed over his thinned neck. He had three black furred legs, but his leg frontal was metal with a tiny red star. The little beast was off-balanced and horrified by the aspects of his life.

A cursed life of a stray cat. He milled around the graves, getting use to his adaption as a feline, he was wobbly in the legs, and crawled away from the heap of his clothing. His humanity. His existence.

Bucky stalked closer to the woman, despite the feline nature controlling his actions, he managed to force his humanity with a daunting voice, "I will find you," he hissed out vicious warning, looking up at the witch with his blue daggers. "I will kill you." he concluded, before opening his mouth, and picking up his knife in his small jaws. He merely choked on the leather grazing over his rough tongue, but he had to become armed, and his metal claws to dig into the earth, feeling the vibrations underneath him.

The witch lowered herself down, smirking darkly at the black cat, "If your friend can't figure out who you are by the next full moon, then you will watch him suffer as his soul becomes mine."

Clenching his jaw, Bucky swiped his paw at her. "I don't think so, " he hissed, indignant, and swiped his claws at her leg, marring her flesh as the kittens tumbled to the ground. He shifted his intent blue eyes and resumed his gaze on the dead cat. Their mother. "They're coming with me..." He growled, spitting out the knife. He couldn't leave the kittens into the hands of morbid hag. He had to protect them. When he decided his next action, he scooped the meowing babies up gently with his jaws and quickly stalked passed a headstone.

"Enjoy your nine lives, Winter Soldier," she replied, picking up his tattered pieces of clothing. Bucky intensely stared up at her with confusion; she knew who he was, his past and everything. She was a part of HYDRA. A witch doing the devil's work. "Don't forget to beg for milk."

Keeping his little tongue pressed on the roof of his mouth, Bucky shot her a piercing stare of extreme hatred, and walked away from her, and searched for a safe area to keep the clinging kittens out of danger of humans and traffic. "Do what I tell you," he muttered firmly, keeping the female close to his chest, as her tiny head nuzzled against his fur. The male was curled into a ball over his back, purring soundlessly. "...and we might survive, kids."

Feeling their heart beats, tiny and content vibrate through his slender form, Bucky stalked out of the graveyard, keeping himself elusive and tucked himself underneath a parked car, calculating his next tactic while a harrowing sense of dread crept over him and he realized that he was a ghost, no name, face or voice. Just his pained tears held his broken existence.

The violent gusts of wind lashed around his displaced, compromised body, he ignored it. He wanted to feel nothing.

He was trapped inside a prison of fur, only the blue shimmer of his eyes kept him from wearing the full semblance of a black cat. It was punishment he didn't deserve, HYDRA wanted to bury him into a grave, make him taste death. He aborted his mission and saved a good man that called out his name against the crimson fog of his damaged mind. He could sense that the lifeless cat, he handled was a once a human, a victim of HYDRA who became desecrated by dark enchantment and sentence to roam the earth as cat. As the bitter cold weaved against him and his strength began to fade away.

The man or whoever he once was had vanished and he was barren from humanity and left to fend for not only his life, but two more lives that he had been condemned to protect.

Curling into a ball, he placed the kittens close to him, stroking their bodies with a flick of his tail and coldness of his past seemed to have melted away. He closed his eyes to stop the flow of tears.

_'Focus on the mission, soldier_,' he thought, snapping his head up, and looked down with a protective stare at the shivering fur balls nudging their tiny faces into his side. Whining the little female, called out for her mother, Bucky lowered his head and rubbed his muzzle over her body, soothing down her cries of distress as he purred feeling her whiskers prick against his face.

He knew that this mission will be the hardest one he would ever have to carry out...


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky felt his insides twisting inhumanity, bones rubbing over the frailty of his condemned body; soul was tangling against the chaos and dread was unraveling within him. Coldness of the midnight air wavered over him, lashing against his ebony fur, making him shift restlessly against the rough, frigid pavement.

The fumes of car exhaust entered his nostrils, as he breathed in the mixtures of scents, human body oils, filth covered rats and decay piling in tight corners of vacant alleyways.

It made his thin stomach churn as he grinding the back of his needle pointed teeth, clenching his muzzle and screwing his eyes shut as headlights of bustling traffic reflected over his distraught form. He mewed out tortured cries, his body contorted in torment; tail swayed with his rapid heartbeats, his coating of sleek fur grew hot and drenched as his mind drowned with feline instincts.

He was a cat. The lanky, black feline opened his mouth and gave a long, mournful cry in memory of his human existence, answered by the kittens' soft meowing and fear as they huddled against him. Alarmed by their affectionate touch, Bucky jerked and hissed out a intimating warning, "Back off," he growled, seething out his acrimony, slashing his right frontal paw in the air and merely sliced the little female with his razor edged claws, almost cutting her back.

She reacted at his outburst and then she wobbled to the sagging tire, shivering into a small ball of fur as she cried shrilly out for her mother.

Aggravated, Bucky eased himself off the pavement; his heart was pumping dangerously fast, igniting into overdrive. The fur on his back stood on its end. His claws retracted and muzzle clenched and unclenched. His breath grew into ragged pants. His whole body shaking. He stalked closer to the tire, trying to regain his humanity as he released strained breath, his lung starving for air.

He was acutely aware of her distress; cautiously he sat down in front of her, looking down at her trembling body shiver under his dark shadow. He sighed, keeping his unnerved pools of crystal blue latched over her. "Look," he began, his mind going blank as his vocal cords were pitching out gravelly and weakened breaths. "I didn't mean to scare you...I'm not use to being a cat. Everything feels very strange for me," he choked out, using a lighter tone in his voice, careful not to scare the kitten.

He lowered himself down, and grabbed her with his metal paw, pulled her close to him, his chest battered against her body. "You two are in need of my protection. I will not abort this mission, you're too young and vulnerable to be left alone on the streets..." he ceased in his words, involuntary cocking his head up, inhaling the vague stench of wet fur in the air, but he couldn't confirm it. The kittens made tiny noises of whimpering-something was out there-something dangerous and posed as a threat to the young felines.

Quickly, Bucky picked up the other kitten, placing him close to the female against the tire. He froze momentary, listening to the hush movement of a predator, he felt each vibration against the padding of his paws, he turned and looked at the kittens, "Don't move," he whispered, methodically stepping away from the undercarriage of the vehicle.

Scanning, he blue eyes sharp against the radiant glow of dingy muted street light caressing over the obscured streets of Washington, he lowered his body into an attacking stance, his belly rubbing over the cement as he caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure prowling the umbra of the sidewalk, approaching his position, searching in trash cans and picking up scraps of litter tucked in the cracks. He eyes morphed into wide blackish orbs, blocking out all light, as he stared intently at a mangy, rabid canine, dark fur, grimy and disheveled and massive paws balding with mistreatment.

The dog moved toward the car, its livid dark eyes narrowed and muzzle cracked open to reveal a set of teeth, and drool. He released a deadly snarl, sniffing out the kittens, as he steps were slow and encroaching. Instincts told Bucky that the beast was a danger to the mewing babies, a hunter that would kill them with one fatal bite of its locked jaw.

Without any hesitation pulsing in his veins, Bucky glared spitefully at the dog, his muscles jostled and claws retracted out, he lunged at the dog like a bullet fired from a pistol within seconds, his left metal paw pushing the dog's front leg back, and then he sunk his claws into exposed flesh, making the beast yelp in pain as he puncture the skin.

Blood had seeped out from the slash marks he left during his assault. He hissed out viciously, biting and clawing in a fur ball frenzy, his little body moved against the dog, and he searched for the weak points as his seized his opponent, curled his curl around the muzzle of the snarling canine, sealing the mouth shut, as he clung on upside down, and as livid resentment sharpened his blue eyes into molten steel.

Relenting in pain, the dog fumbled on its hind legs, crashing into the wooden bench, his furry chest scraped and marred with slash marks, and front legs bloodied.

Bucky released his claws, and landed perfectly on his feet, and glared lethally at the battered up canine.

"Leave," he demanded, lashing out his claws,"Or I will not waste a second to kill you, mutt." he hissed out darkly, glowering with a drop of blood sloping down his head.

The dog blanched a quivering step backwards and scrambled away as he cat charged at him once more, when the shadow of the beast faded down the street, Bucky slipped underneath the car, and was instantly greeted by little noses nudging over his fur.

"Are you guys okay?" he asked with concern rattling in his woozy voice.

The female meowed out her response, and nuzzled her body against his chest, purring softly. Bucky rolled his eyes, and stroking his muzzle over her fur, and sighed, feeling a spark of his humanity return, "You're welcome, kid."


	3. Chapter 3

His luminous eyes were ghostly hue of azure, foggy ice around his diamond pupils; the moonlight reflected over his silky ebony fur, giving him the appearance of a looming wraith as Bucky stalked closer to the grave site; he felt the coldness of the ground penetrated through his bones. Silently he probed the stone with his paw, digging into the soggy dirt, and he felt numb against the cold breeze wavering over his slender body. His blue eyes darkened with malice as it carved in unison with his twitching and muzzle into a scowl.

"I hate this," Bucky grumbled coldly in disgust, feeling the dampness of the ground absorb against the padding of his paws. "Why?"

His head pounded against the mindless thoughts surging his memory—devouring images of his humanity with instincts of the ebony furred feline he was transformed into by witch's cursive words.

Slowly, he narrowed his hazy blue embers down at the piles of grass—he felt his pink tongue lap against his fur as the staleness in the air engulfed all his senses.

Bucky bent his head disdainfully and he stared with resentment at the grime covered grave and fading and forgotten name of the deceased etched over the granite that shadowed over his vulnerable form— he was a prisoner who had become swallowed up in abyss and isolated from humanity.

The dingy amber-yellow light from the waxen moon became entrapped in the depth of his cat eyes as he stalked closer to the grave, and blanched an alarmingly step backwards from a shard of mirror placed against the stone-the witch left it there remotely to diminish his hope-to butcher his soul and allow him to become an empty of a enslaved and tortured feline. He sat rigidly nostalgically staring at reflection of the sleek animal greeted him in the darkness.

He shuddered, feeling his blood boil and bared his teeth. He unleashed a feral bellow and instantly he felt his small shape recoil back as he studied intently at the semblance he wore—he had the distinct color of his hair— chestnut and his piercing eyes were still the bright, gentle and fierce blue instead of the gold he saw with the other stray cats.

His flat and small muzzle had sprouts of whiskers and his body was skinny with a long tail snaking out of his backside between his hind legs empathizing his cat appearance. Painfully disgusted, he clamped his eyes shut; feeling every fiber of his locked soul tear into pieces as he blew out a dismal sound, "No," he said aloud, his voice hoarse. His throat was constricting, vocal cords restricted. His breathing was getting harder to manage. He felt the tears run astray over his furry face.

He rubbed his metal paw over his muzzle, trying to wipe the tears clean. "This isn't me..."

Bucky frowned at himself, utterly disgusted as he tore his eyes away from the mirror. He scrambled to regain his stubborn vanity, dignity—and his defiant, unbreakable soul. He took another look, solely peering beyond the reflection of the cat and searched for his true self—the lethal and efficient killer. The equalizer who was used like a gun, with HYDRA pulling the trigger with every command.

The Winter Soldier.

He heaved out an abysmal breath, creasing his brow as he stared deeper, refusing to grasp disbelief—refusing the accept the cold, biting truth that he will never become a human again—that he would rot in the prison and endure the pain of feeling his life slip further away in the delirium with each distress meow that escaped from his throat.

Swallowing down his courage, Bucky focused his eyes and stared at the illusion moral soul beneath the animal. There he was, standing in the glass of the mirror—daunting, haunted and strong. His steely eyes were embers of blue fire; his lips were still with the arch of his Cupid's bow breaking the sullen frown and his broad and chiseled jaw strong and hard with a permanent clench in the muscle. His dark and thick, messy hair framed over his menacing face. He looked dangerous as his lips held the darkness of his degraded nature.

"Who am I?" he released a gruff hiss, his throat constricted and pained seared into his heart, but then his stern countenance shifted- his eyes welled with fearfulness as he lowered his head and sulked quietly, nonchalant. "It doesn't matter...No one will remember me anyways..."

He knew his existence was fading deeper inside vessel of the cat—he knew that he was no longer the murderous and elusive assassin-The Winter Soldier-the best marksman, combatant and master of stealth, no, he was a slave to an order-a depressed drone for HYDRA's sick bemusement and he wasn't alone with the inescapable coldness of his fate-the two kittens, weak and helpless were a part of the torturous curse-transfiguration, starvation, death and then the worse of all-slipping further into his new body, losing the weaves of memory, and spending his days prowling the streets, nameless, homeless and lost.

But he wasn't alone.

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><p>The muted orange of streetlamps reflected over brownstone; restless and drained from another disappointing search, Captain Steve Rogers shuffled quietly down the vacant street. He looked disheveled, out of focus on his own thoughts, as his sneaks crunched the rustling the leaves as he strode on the sidewalk, he didn't bother checking the messages on his phone, he was trapped in a shroud of his own despair, allowing the guilt and remorse conceal him from the world, but his determination was valid and strong, he spent three months collecting information of his best friend's inhumane and honorific past.<p>

He spent his nights screaming and tangling under the sheets of his bed, as the haunting nightmarish images consumed his mind until he became feverish with scolding hatred. He was lost in the realms of his tortured mind, feeling the icy prick of remorse encase his bones as thoughts flowed back many years, but with emptiness. He had missed seventy years of his life-stuck in a frozen coffin under the thickness of ice and water, feeling the world move on without him, carrying the marring guilt of Bucky Barne's death.

_"You know...Sometimes I think you like being a punching bag, Rogers," Bucky said, a fond smile tugged at his lips. He gently applied an ice over the bruised cheek. "How many times is this now...Seven...Eight?"_

_"Ten," Steve winced, gritting his teeth. "I had him on the ropes, Buck."_

_Bucky pursed lips up, and shook his head, "Right, just like you had the others on the ropes, huh, Stevie?" he pointed out, and stared at the young golden haired boy, a smug grin on his chiseled face as he wiped off the smears of blood from Steve's bottom, split lip._

_"I never asked to get punched, Buck."_

_"No," Bucky sighed, firmly, "but you big mouth sure doesn't know how to keep shut when you're in the place."_

_Steve lowered his eyes, "I guess that this whole thing is really my fault...I'm strong in my words, but not anywhere else,"_

_"Stop with the dramatics, Steve," Bucky whispered, patting his friend's jaw, "You've got me to clean up the messes you make." he looked down at the other boy with his sincere blue eyes, "And I'm never going to let everything happen to you, punk."_

_He smiled contently at the flash of memory, letting images of a younger Bucky Barnes replay in his troublesome mind as the he walked to the crosswalk and waited for the traffic light to switch green._

Each dead end of Barne's location made him sink deeper into defeat, crashing his bones with the weight of grief; choking him until he became voiceless. Tonight, Steve felt his lowest, watching neighborhood children gather on street corners dressed up at superheroes and monsters. Friends and brothers. Memories.

Sighing deeply, Steve pulled out Bucky's dog tags from a pocket of his jeans, holding the chain and plates of metal up to the glow of light, staring with his intent crystal cobalt eyes at the name and date of birth etched forever, it was the only remainder of Bucky's existence.

_"I can't do this, Bucky,"_

_Bucky smiled, his blue eyes bright with warmth, as he placed his hand firmly on Steve's bony shoulder, "Look at me, Stevie," he spoke calmly, lips never faltered. "I know that you can do this...If you fall...I'm here to pick your skinny ass back up."_

_Steve looked down, his blood was squirming, as he swallowed a knot a fear and stared at the rocky peak. "Why did I let you talk me into this?"_

_"You needed fresh air and plus we never do anything fun," Bucky laughed dryly, smirking with a gentle shimmer in his eyes. "Come on, if you want you can take my hand... You know that I will never let you go, right?"_

_"Yeah, I know." Steve blew out a breath, ruffling his golden tendrils of hair, and reached out his frail hand, and felt his best friend's hand envelope over his own, and with one heave of breath, he climbed the large rock, and stood next to Bucky while saying mutely, "I don't ever want to lose you, Buck." he sniffled, brushing his finger under his nose._

_"Hey," Bucky returned, crouching down low, lifting his chin up, "You're not going to lose me...I'm always going to be right here..." He lightly tapped Steve's chest, careful not the damage the rib bones. He told him with certainly, and wrapped his broad around him, pulling him into a massive, brotherly hug. "We're brother...Stevie Rogers...Stupid and daring. We're always going to be together, because you've got me and I've got you..."_

_Feeling the warmth of Bucky against him, Steve curled his lips into a lopsided smirk, and closed his eyes._

* * *

><p>"I just want you back, Buck," Steve whispered faintly. He felt a surge of pain slice through his heart. And he held the chained necklace close to the firmness of his chest; muscles strained, making his blood churn with liquid heat. He tightened his clutch into a fist.<p>

He tried to breathe, but everything was agony.

Raising his head, Steve leveled his blue eyes to the shafts of moonlight, he spoke with strong declaration in his voice, "I will find you, James Barnes. I promise."


	4. Chapter 4

Something was stirring in the air.

Bucky could sense it in his whiskers, something familiar and unknown was beginning to pull him into right direction. His vigil of watching bustling traffic pass by, kept him at impasse at the crosswalk, he had no idea how to protect the dozy kittens nuzzling in between his front paws, his sharp ears twitched to the strange vibrations of rubber from the tires grinding over asphalt. He felt it under his paws. All soon the tranquil sounds would be shattered by the straits of sirens blaring through the main streets, making his back arch up and fur stand on its end as the restless city came alive.

It was only during this hour that he wished that some memories from his haunted and torturous past had been kept, simply because the early hours of morning were the time when he-the Winter Soldier received his directives to terminate targets from roof tops, with pull the trigger of his sniper rifle, firing a untraceable Russian slug beyond the plaster of walls and enter pounding hearts within seconds after being discharges.

His own heart, cold and damaged mourned in grievance for the victims, their faces emerged from the dark cervices of his mind, hands painted with blood grabbing for him from the disturbed earth, trying to drag him down, imprisoned him into a grave and close it shut with chains latched around it. Deep down, somewhere inside his diminished soul; Bucky wanted redemption and freedom from his nightmarish sins. He wanted to erase everything out of his mind; become reborn into a good man and save lives decided of destroying them. It was nights like this one, he wished for a second chance to live without biting and inescapable coldness of HYDRA pulsing in his veins. Crying, if cats could show pain, he lowered his head in disdain, feeling the kitten's little hearts beating against his black fur. He was aware that they were scared, cold and hungry; their muffled whimpers told him their needs.

They needed their mother.

In this distressed moments, Bucky was resigned to follow his instincts. Without him the babies would die within days and he would carry that guilt along with every other life HYDRA ordered him to take under the gun. He would be alone to watch another part of his stolen and butchered life fade into myth and legend. He would be forgotten.

But during this dark hour, Bucky felt close to his past than ever before.

Startled, Bucky snapped his ghostly, blue eyes down, and looked at the little female nuzzling her face into the metal plates of his compromised limb, she was purring loudly, eyes closed and muzzle rubbed over the cool alloy. Unnerved, transformed Soviet assassin, scrunched his muzzle, and blew out a frustrated sigh. He didn't know how to react to her needy affection, but he didn't blanched away.

Instead he remained still and ignored her, and he systematically observed his surroundings, checking for any impending danger. When he looked down way, he could see only few cars driving closer to traffic light that reflected a reddish tinge of his ebony pelt. Yet, when he looked in the opposite direction, he was glaring at dark shapes of buildings, looming shadows and fragments of litter twirling in the light gusts of wind.

The area seemed secure enough, to cross the side, he effortlessly lifted the kittens up, with the scuff of their necks, being extra cautious not to puncture his fangs into their fur, as he moved closed to the edge of the sidewalk, stepped down on a metal sewer grate, and advanced to his targeted destination in slow and methodical strides.

He was so determined to cross the street, blue eyes ablaze and locked on the adjacent building, that he didn't release a wad of gum was smudged on the pavement, his metal paw suddenly became glued down, and he couldn't move for a second-all it took was one second to stare at a pair of blinding headlights reflecting into his enlarged black pupils, and he was frozen-the man who had been trained to defy emotions was trapped in fear. The car was driving faster, and he didn't have enough to react. He was going to die. They were going to die.

Shrieking aloud, Bucky jerked his body wildly, heart was pounding rapidly and rib bones pushed against his slender muscle mass, he was stared intently in horror at the car, some idiotic driver revving their engine and stepping on the gas with two girls dressed up was witches laughing and fumbling over the seats-blood had started to turn cold and ears flatted against the back of his skull. Bucky could feel his body moving, but the world seemed to rotate slowly as the car was about him dead on. He would a stain of fur and crashed bones on the street.

"NO!"

The tires screeched.

Bucky slammed his eyes shut, and embraced for impact with the front tire. He knew what was coming for him next.

"I got you..."

Suddenly in a flash of light, a pair of large hands scooped him off the ground, huddled his trembling body in lining of a jacket.

Bucky listened to the sound of feet smacking off the slick pavement, his blue eyes sweeping down, as everything blurred in his vision, the kittens were gentled placed in an other hand of his rescuer, and through the frantic thralls erupting in his body, he managed to lift his bewildered gaze up, and stare into deep, and powerful crystal cobalt eyes, they were filled with trust, warm and heartache.

He was surrounded by warmth, shield by resilient heart that pounded against his ears, and enveloped by memories of his past-it seemed surreal for him to even fathom, in despite of everything that he endeared in the short period of time, he finally closed his eyes and purred out a name that drove hope back into his condemned body, "I know you.." He groaned miserably.

"It's okay," Steve whispered in a soft voice, his sharp, chiseled jaw line clenched as he shot an intense, brutal glower at the vehicle speeding past him. Holding the cat in a nest of his arm, he gently placed the female and the male in separate pockets of his jacket. His hand lightly caressed over the drenched fur, easing the tension as Bucky's blue eyes slowly dimmed and his face rested over the sleeve. The super-solider pressed his lips into a weak smile, listening to the cat purr in contentment.

"You're safe with me," Steve assured, stroking his fingers along the cat's back, it had been a long time since he held a stray in his arms, it felt like a lifetime to him. Sighing deeply, he looked at the marred fur and thin railed body, and stiffened his lips into a light grimace. He made his decision in a heartbeat, "You're coming home with me," he whispered, narrowing his cool blue eyes down at the timid kittens. "All of you are coming home."

"Home," Bucky repeated softly, closing his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

><p>Under the dim light of the bed side lamp, Bucky sat on the edge of the bed and staring at Steve's hand unconsciously run warmth over the mewing kittens drenched and silky bodies, gentle strokes; slowly easing the tension penetrating dully through their small forms.<p>

The little female tilted her head against the super-soldier's broad arm, purring contently, closing her icy blue eyes as she slowly drifted into a peaceful slumber.

Narrowing his head, Bucky looked down at his paws, resentment sizzled in his veins. He snapped his piercing gaze up and stared intently at Steve.

"Who are you?" he whispered lowly; trying to collect the shattered fragments of his damaged past.

After finally scanning his unfamiliar environment with systematic calculating; the ebony furred cat stalked to the pillow, his steps methodical and hushed, as he neared the lump tucked underneath folded blankets, digging his claws into the material, getting closer.

He lowered his slender body near the mount of pillows, his tail swaying and he watched the super-soldier with a foreboding stare. Steve looked so content when he slept; his short golden hair messily ruffled and spiked, his eyelids closed, sealing the stunning, and powerful cobalt irises underneath, but a subdued grimace hung rigidly on his lips. His torso was etched with faint scars of past battles, and his heart beat was strong with each pounding pulse. The rise and fall of Steve's chest matched each breath that ghosted over the soldier's lips. Silence lingered in the darkness of the room.

The black cat froze momentarily; he tried to prod his mind to awareness. It was locked in the tangled weaves of HYDRA.

"I know you," He muffled out with a feeble breath; his blue eyes had grown distant. Swallowing, Bucky opened his tiny muzzle, forcing the solemn words of recollection to escape from his clogged up throat. Everything crackled in his vocal cords, and he fought against the constricting hold that barred his voice and took a released a shakily exhale. His breathing shortened. The sheets rustled underneath his paws as he pulled himself closer and faced Steve, blearily scanning his gaze over a face that haunted him.

"I know you," He muffled out with a feeble breath; his blue eyes had grown distant. Swallowing, Bucky opened his tiny muzzle, forcing the solemn words of recollection to escape from his clogged up throat. Everything crackled in his vocal cords, and he fought against the constricting hold that barred his voice and took a released a shakily exhale. His breathing shortened. The sheets rustled underneath his paws as he pulled himself closer and faced Steve, blearily scanning his gaze over a face that haunted him.

_Confusion. He felt the urges of control ripple in his veins; metal pounded violently over a face. Red clouded his vision and blood smeared his lips; anger ignited as he rammed his knuckles into a strong jawline, scarping the skin and leaving his mark on the face of his mission._

_In one fraction of a second, he blinked and chanced a gaze down at the battered face of the man underneath him; staring into hazy cobalt eyes filled with smoldering grief and remorse. He blanched an inch back, his dark brown strands billowing against his marked up face, and intense blue eyes watering as he met the soulful gaze of a friend._

_His heart thudded to a halt in his chest, rage seethed out of him, and his real hand gripped over the star in the center of the soldier's royal blue uniform. His hand was over the other man's heart, and he knew that he wanted to feel the beat; and refused to end the pulse moving with his fingers._

_Tearing his eyes away, he breathed in the sickening aroma of blood, steel and ash. It was a battlefield once again, and he was trapped on the front lines with his captain. Valor entered him, and he held on tight to the uniform, securing his arm over the fading body._

_Breathing in deeply, he just stared, tears filmed in his eyes and memories reemerged. "I...I knew you..."_

Shaking his head, Bucky looked steadily at the avenger, blank and dazed, and a sullen frown crept over his face, despite the fact that he had remnants of his past glazed across his soulless eyes, dulling and watery into something that swelled with anguish and kept him at an impasse. A blink and a tear drizzled over his sleek fur, drenching over the curve of his muzzle. He couldn't contain his emotions. Another blink, and something triggered in his brain that connected with his penetrating eyes.

Bucky glared at Steve with purpose. A final blink and he drifted out the delirium, inhaling sluggishly, but not staring long at the man, he didn't want to believe in hope at the moment. Hope wasn't his life line to grasp the freedom. He lost all warmth of humanity years before when he went under the ice and became reborn as the Winter Soldier. Instead he eased himself slightly back, and wrenched his eyes away.

"I know you can't understand me...I'm not a human anymore," his voice dragged out with a nonchalant tone, and he hung his head low, clenching his eyelids shut. He whimpered softly, lifting his metal paw up and clamping it over his mouth; trying to stop the discreet mewls of pain he was making. He remembered the torturous experiences in the Red Room that devolved him into a weapon. He sounded broken. "I never was human."

He kept his blue eyes firmly on the slumbering kittens; sensing a familiar and forgotten presence shielding them.

Closing his eyes, Bucky felt his mind drifting back into the void. He became a captive to the glimpses of his past.

He felt the tears escape from his eyes before he attempted to stop them. Images flickered into his mind, gripping him until he could no longer fight the strong hold that locked him into a crevice of his disturbed past, leaving him to stare at the gray light...

_Failure._

_Sickly blood dripped over his temples. The edge of a knife rested on the pulsing skin; tentatively slicing over the compromised wounds and old scars, unleashed more watery maroon._

_Cold hands gripped over his neck; forcing him to witness an unspeakable horror of the mistreatment of humanity. She was beautiful, shacked to a metal chair, her ivory skin marred with crimson droplets escaping from the open wounds. Her long golden-brown hair matted and tangled, full lips a pale color of rose and her eyes-the windows of her defiant soul were darkened with light bruising. She failed her mission and was forced by ill will to withstand a bone numbing torture._

_Bucky stared at her, tears blinding and scolding his eyes, his vision was glued on the surgical tools efficiently placed on the top of a rusted metal cart._

_"Leave her alone!' he roared out his protesting cries, thrashing against the steel bounds latched over his bare and bloodied torso. "It wasn't her fault. She completed her mission."_

_He lifted his trembling flesh hand up, trying to reach for her. "Anna," he yelled breathlessly, shearing his throat with heat._

_She looked at him; vacancy welled in her darkening eyes. He saw no light._

_"She is no longer your concern, boy." A sinister German voice resounded in the encroaching shadows of the room; heavy footsteps echoed against the cement floor. Bucky dropped his gaze and reluctantly stared at a pair of sleek black leather boots, perfectly mounted with both heels touching. A gloved hand stroked over the young woman's quaking shoulder, and yanked the thick ringlets and jerked her head back._

_"She doesn't deserve this!" Bucky managed to gesture his metal hand to disheveled woman sitting laden in the chair. "Make me feel the pain...Not her..." he panted out in heavy breaths; his blue eyes never left her paled face as he watched the lines of blood streak over her full lips._

_The older man gave a small and inhuman laugh for his response._

_"Do you think I really care about her life, asset?" he questioned Bucky, his daunting gray eyes roamed over the beaten soldier. "She is just a mere item that can easily be broken and destroyed with a simple flick of a switch."_

_"No..." Bucky said aloud hoarsely, attempting to break free from his unbreakable restraints. He gritted his teeth; making the blue in his irises turn into a livid white. "I failed the mission...It wasn't her...LET HER GO!"_

_He avoided his captor's gaze._

_"She belongs to HYDRA."_

_Bucky shook his head, "She belongs to no one." he replied, tightness formed in his jaw._

_The older man shrugged. "Human emotions will not be tolerated for HYDRA. I will allow you to watch her scream and then you will be put on ice."_

_He walked over to the defiant soldier, and instantly without any hesitation slapped the young man into the face; blood poured out and dribbled to the floor._

_Bucky strangled out cough as shoulder length strands fell laden into his glistening blue eyes. Red stained his powerful jawline and the curve of his lips was butchered into a taunt grimace. He managed to whisper out the name of the woman that touched his stone cold heart. His partner and anchor out of the mindless tortures, "Anna..."_

_He was forced to watch her jerk in the chair was the electronic shocks ripped through her bones and her screams died with every pulse of induced into her lithe frame. His heart was racing and metal hand clenched until her head dropped to her chest and body became still._

_Fixing his eyes on the distraught and heartbroken young man, the leader placed his gloved hand on Anna's shoulder, and cracked an emphatic smirk over his wrinkled face. "Her body will be put to better use for HYDRA...She will benefit greatly for our future. I will get to hold her heart in my hand." he snarled out coldly, not removing his gaze away from Bucky. He relished watching the young Russian assassin broke down into a whimpering and pathetic sack of flesh and bones._

_Staring deeply at her, Bucky tightened his eyes and allowed the tears to streak over his cheeks, his emotions faltering and heart skipping beats. He felt dead._

_Shortly after he was released from the chamber and left alone with her lifeless body on a medical, he placed his metal hand fondly over her soft cheeks, and looked down at her. He narrowed his head down, resting it on her forehead, feeling the coldness sear his skin and he brushed the warmth of his lips over her mouth, holding a kiss there and letting his emotions pour out of him._

_"I would do anything to have you back," he whispered, his lips quivering over hers, and his tears fell into her long hair._

_He pulled her head close to his chest, encompassing his real hand on her cheek, resting her face over the muscle covering his heart._

_"Can you hear that, Anna?' he spoke in a cracking voice, his eyes closing. "You found my heart and I lost yours..."_

_When he finally broke his last kiss, he vanished into the shadows of winter, leaving her at peace. He didn't turn around; he kept on walking, not sensing a presence cloaking over the body. He didn't hear the words of an incantation ghost over Anna. He didn't watch her beauty fade into a black form of a degraded beast that called out desperately to him, saying the words of truth before she was snatched and taken away._

He jolted awake, clinging to the folds of twisted sheets with his claws stuck into the mattress. Frazzled, Bucky quickly scoped over the room, breathing out frantically. He had nearly fallen off the edge of the bed during his nightmare, his ears rested flat and black fur raised as his rib cages tightened.

He could remember every detail of it. It was during a cold December, a HYDRA base in Russia. He had fallen in love with a young agent named Anna. She never gave him her surname. They were partners for covert missions and KGB snipers; he trained her, broke a few ribs and shared a hidden love affair with her during their missions. A snitch in their operation managed to squeal on their secret and shortly after she was terminated and her remains were unrecoverable. He had forgotten about her, they removed her from his mind and replaced those memories with static.

Lowering his head, Bucky squeezed the tears out of his eyes, not realizing that one of the kittens was snuggled against him.

Alarmed, he turned his head and stared at the little female, purring against his side, brushing her face against his fur.

His nose crinkled as he inhaled the scent wavering off of her small form; a smell that replaced his pain with a sudden comfort. She had the fragrance of Anna on her fur.

"It's okay...I'm here." Bucky whispered, blue eyes gleaming and he rose off the blankets, and lifted her up, using his teeth as hooks to gather the baby fur, and moved to one of the pillows, and gently settled her down, between his paws. He looked at the small lump of fur, and he noticed a brown fur on her head when she tilted her head up and she stared at her with big blue eyes, purring contently.

He nudged her softly with his muzzle, giving her a fast lick with his pink tongue, and then he fixed his protective eyes back on Steve.

* * *

><p>Somewhere within the city, a small black cat sat on the ledge of a fire escape; her amber eyes stared at the streaks of moonlight piercing through the misty clouds. She was restless, alone and grieving. Silently, she wept, searching in the darkness of the alley way for something precious to her.<p>

"James..."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

* * *

><p>The next morning Steve awoke from a content dream; no dark circles hung under his crystal blue eyes.<p>

He quickly threw the covers off his muscular body, allowing the crisp fall breeze to ease the feverish heat, and he stretched and rose from the mattress, he sat on the edge of the mattress, closing his eyes and imaging the tears falling over his frozen cheeks that moment he watched the metal rail snap and listened to the echoes of his blood brother screaming to his death.

He wanted to erase all the hurtful torrents of his tormenting nightmares that repeated in his mind over and over again until his heart ached, but it never availed even though he wanted the pain and throbbing to last against his rib cage.

He always felt a constant and condemning reminder of his failures to save Bucky.

Inhaling, deeply, Steve eased his body off the mattress and dragged his feet sluggish across the cold floorboards; the red and light pink of dawn reflected over his chiseled muscles and he pressed the bare planes of his back against the door frame; his intent blue eyes stared at the black cat curled into a ball with the two kittens purring against his slender frame. Blinking the deary fatigue out of his eyes, he furrowed his eyebrows and caught a glimpse of silver gleaming in the shafts of light streaming from the blinds.

He felt something different, a sense of olden peace that rattled through his bones; it almost like Bucky was in the room.

"Where are you, Buck?" he whispered, feeling his heart jerked in his chest. He settled his hand flatly on the door, and clenched his jaw. "Maybe I'm not looking hard enough or maybe you don't want me to find you." he discharged out a pained breath and stared morosely at the stray cat. Steve watched the male breath, listened to a faint purr of distress follow the shivers. The urge to walk over and lift the cat grew strong as his solemn face lowered. Then, the ebony feline cracked his blue eyes open just enough to catch a beam of light. "Good morning," he addressed the cat in a soft and pleasant tone.

Bucky yawned, crinkling his muzzle and revealing his sharp needle point fangs. He arched his back up and stretchered out his paws. He looked up at Steve, glaring at the super-soldier with cold blue eyes, searching for a reason to trust him. When he sensed to danger, the cat eyed Steve suspiciously. "Why are you displaying kindness to me?" he meowed, his voice dry against his throat. "I can sense that you are not danger...but I still don't trust you."

Steve inched closer in tentative steps to the bed, "Do you want some breakfast?"

Bucky blanched back, his muscles jostled. "No," he hissed out stubbornly, scoffing at Steve; despite the fact that his stomach was grumbling for nourishment. He tore his piercing stare away, and continued in an irritable voice, "I don't want your food. I want nothing from you..."

"I'm not going to hurt you," Steve spoke in an unimposing voice, gesturing his hand out. Bucky leaned in forward, cautious and sniff his scent.

Growling up his throat, Bucky pulled himself back, carefully avoiding the kittens slumbering in the folds of sheets behind him. His nose crinkled at the familiar smell; it was strange and yet natural to him. He straightened his posture, tucked his tail against his hind legs and sat down glaring up at Steve. "I know you..." he ceased in his words, roving his eyes around his new surroundings. He mapped out all the exit points in his mind. Instinctively he surveyed over the furnishings of the massive bedroom and the emptiness. It was dull and cold.

"You actually live like this?" the cat spoke in an emotionless tone; he tried to sound human, but all that escaped from his tiny mouth was an annoying meowing noise. He turned back and looked at Steve, feeling disheveled, sensing the despair the super-soldier was hiding.

"I guess they belong to you?" Steve asked, gesturing his hand at the kittens.

Bucky shook his head silently and looked out a Steve with his ghostly blue eyes.

"Do you want some milk?" He offered, trying to develop trust between the stoic cat. "I know the cats back in Brooklyn enjoyed a bowl," a chipper smirk crossed over his lips, "Bucky always hated it when I use to feed the strays ...He never really liked cats that much...Always called them good for nothin' fleabags."

Bucky rolled his eyes.

"Uhh..." Steve hummed in thought for a long moment. "I have a carton of milk in the fridge; I can fix you up a bowl if you like?"

The brainwashed, transformed assassin mutely shook his head. He was unprepared to the compassion Steve gave to him; sulking lightly, he jumped off the bed and slipped underneath the mattress frame. He was surrounded by darkness and dust. It was comforting. That's what it felt to him; mere fragments of memory skimmed through his mind, like splinters of ice falling into snow, confusion kept the rest non-existent. It was only in the moment, when he turned his head and looked at the cluster of dusty and forgotten photo frames that something triggered recollection back into him; and the smoky haze that settled in his mind, dissolved as his metal paw touched brass frame, and slid it out from the pile.

It was old, glass cracked at the edges, but everything seemed intact.

Sighing, Bucky moved his paw over the glass, and stared at the black and white photograph with disdained swelling in him. The photo was a young man, early twenties, with Irish intermixed in his handsome features. He had a strong and broad jaw, thick dark hair that was combed perfectly to one side. His full lips held a mischievous and bright smile. The defining feature was his grayish blue eyes that matched his dark blue winter jacket. The Howling Commando uniform.

Bucky eyes hardened and he whimpered with disbelief as he stared at the image of himself-Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes in bewilderment. He recoiled back, heart started to race and tears leaked from his eyes.

"No...» He cried, struggling to force out his sorrows. He backed away another inch, and kept his watery, lost eyes locked on the photo. "That's me...I'm James Barnes..."

He breathed in the dust, and then darted out of his hiding spot, and moved to the center of the room. His tail swayed angrily and he glared up dangerously at Steve. He dug his claws begrudgingly into the wood, letting the metal scrape.

Steve narrowed his eyes at the enraged cat has he cradled the kittens in the crook of his broad arms.

"So it's true...I'm James Barnes...» The cat meowed back in a strained whine, staring up at Steve with sadness and remorse welled painfully in his daunting blue eyes.

He knew that Steve couldn't understand him. Deep in the pit of his vacant stomach, Bucky figured out that he had to find a try a different way to reach his best friend.

"Steve...Help me?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

><p>"Hey," Bucky hissed out wildly, his dark pupils became slits in the stormy blue of his eyes. He felt tension claw it's away from his churning stomach and beating heart. His tail swayed against the floor violently, and ears spaced out as he seethed his anger at Steve.<p>

"Are you even listening to me?" he fixed his murderous glower on the unmade bed. He wanted to protest, fight and run away. It was in his nature to disappear before his emotions were revealed. Instead, he grumbled under his breath, and kept a sudden absolute stillness to his shivering body. He lightly hissed as the cold bite of the unrelenting truth surged in his bones, penetrating deep into the marrow. His metallic paw screeched against the wood, and he felt the urge of attack.

He moved his eyes systematically, around the dim shadows of the bedroom, trying to gather the shattered and disjointed fragments of memory, which wasn't easy for him since waves of hazardous static pulse against his skull.

Discovering, that he was James Buchanan Barnes wasn't a simple thing to grasp, not when blood stained his ledger. It was unsettling to felt like he had been carrying out his missions as a mindless husk, allowing HYDRA to devour his soul and turn him rabid.

It was condemning, inhumane and wrenching to know that he wasted most of his vitality in a body of an abomination created by Armin Zola. He didn't want to have all his emotions pour out of him, he felt shell shocked and degraded as his harden gaze roved over the long, skinny attachment that slithered from his backside. He had experience horrors in the Red Room, subornation, injections, combat training and ice baths. Each one was still etched on his bones, seeping into his cold veins.

"You're a real piece of work," Bucky dejected out with a shaky breath, he turned around and stalked over to a chair, looking at the royal blue uniform and helmet. His paw encompassed over the material, and he tried to use his fangs to drag the uniform to the floor. He cocked his head up and looked intently at the golden haired super-soldier with a dismal gleam in his intense blue eyes.

"Now, listen up, Steve Rogers...or whoever you are...I think it's Steve..." he cleared his throat and stiffened his muzzle.

His voice became incredulous and his eyes obscured with hardened remorse. "I'm not a stupid alley cat...I'm a skilled and dangerous assassin and if you stand in my way...I will kill you." He discharged out, darkly, swallowing any weakness that had threatened to escape from his throat.

Glancing down at the talkative feline; Steve furrowed his eyebrows, confusion became written on his chiseled face. His blue eyes creased into slits. The cat stared at him, perturbed by the sudden veil of sadness hooding over the crystal irises.

"What's wrong with you?"

Bucky felt his body was flailing from a defense stance. "James Barnes? That's my name isn't it?" He asked bluntly; his face vacant from expression and blue eyes unnerved.

"I'm the soldier in that picture? You're my friend...Steve Rogers?" he whispered lifting his teary eyes to Steve-the sickly boy who'd admired him as a big and protective brother back in Brooklyn-back when they still had dreams instead of nightmares. He stared deep and hard. The gentle blue eyes that were once filled with warm and hope had faded into a murky gray of grief. He bowed his head, and clenched his eyes shut. "The old hag said that a true friend will save me...change me back into a man. How can you save me...You don't even know who I am?"

Sensing the cat's distress, Steve crouched down to his knees, and held out his hand. "I know you feel like you can't trust me, but if you don't eat you'll die." he spoke grimly, trying to reach out to the stubborn animal. "Please, let me help you?"

Bucky tilted his head upwards; he moved cautiously to the massive hand, his nose twitched as he kept his distance, and then he stepped an inch closer. When he felt the warmth caress over his silky fur, he arched his back and purred soundlessly, stroking his body against Steve's rough palm.

"There you go, pal. You're a stubborn cat," Steve chuckled rather in melancholic tone, his fingers brushed tentatively over the short ebony fur. "I think you need a name?" he said, narrowing his eyes down at the purring cat.

The transformed Winter Soldier shook his head slowly, refusing to have a name. "I don't deserve a name. Just call the kids whatever you want and leave me nameless..." he rebuffed in disdain, and then wandered back to the bed, crawling underneath the cascade of blankets and he glanced down at the photograph again and used his claws to latch over the frame, dragging it across the floor and back into the sunlight. He meowed aloud, lulling Steve to look his way, and placed his paw on the glass encased over the image of himself.

Perplexed, Steve furrowed his eyebrows and involuntarily stared down at the photograph of his best friend with intent blue eyes. "Where did you find that?" he asked his breath shuttering as he wrenched his gaze away, and clenched his jaw heavily.

The super-soldier eased himself off the floor, and advanced closer to the bedside, with a sullen expression written over his face. He crouched down next to the cat, settling the kittens to the floor, and moved his hand shakily to the frame.

"His name is James Buchanan Barnes," he choked out thinking it was utterly ridiculously conversing with an animal that gave humans cold and searing glares. For some reason, he felt comfortable talking to the cat. His heart begun to tighten against his rib cage. A few tears ran steadily down his cheeks and dropped over the photo frame. "Bucky was my best friend -a blood brother who always had been there for me ...watching my back and showing me the ropes. We made a promise-that no matter what happened we would be there for each other until the end of the line..." he halted in his words, feeling little throbs penetrate inside his heart.

The cat's ears straightened up as Steve's broken voice resounded in his heart, "...until the end of the line?" he whispered sadly to himself, struggling to swallow the saliva mixed with fur that coated over his tongue. He opened his mouth, but all he could muster up from the depths of his throat was a tortured whine. He never felt too pathetic, useless and imprisoned.

He held his eye contact on Steve, his heart beating once, then twice. He looked away, and jumped unceremoniously onto the bed, turning his back on Steve. His ghostly blue chasms fell on the window pane. Lowering himself down, he crossed his paws close to his narrowed chest, feeling the sickening and heart-wrenching memories lure him back into a void.

_"When are you gonna to quit... Acting like you've got nothin' left to lose?"_

_Steve sagged and swiped his frail hand underneath his pointed nose, smearing the warm maroon over the arch of his lips. "I wasn't planning on running, Buck."_

_Bucky felt his lips stiffened, shaking his head. Looking at the bruise coloring over his friend's ashen skin, he sauntered around the corner of the alley smugly, with a rigid smirk on his chiseled face whilst and gazing down at Steve lying on the ground covered up in dirt and blood. Lighting a cigarette, he inhaled the ashy smoke, and then he stepped closer to the golden haired teenager. He didn't say anything. He held out his hand and picked Steve up and slung a broad arm over the other boy's bony shoulders, carrying him out of the vacant alley and away to safety._

_Steve sniffled, tasting the drops of blood roll over his lips, "One day Buck, I will make those jerks run from me..." he gritted his teeth, staining his friend's shirt with red as he added, "...I will teach them not to mess with the little guy."_

_"Oh really, Stevie," Bucky grinned, his steel blue eyes lightened as he jerked Steve warmly against his side. "How are you planning to put those guys on the ropes? You're a shrimp," he digressed, pressing his lips tight. Steve leveled a hard glare at him._

_"Okay, I'll admit that was harsh. What I'm tryin' to say punk, is that you don't need to prove your strength...You're already strong." He pressed his finger carefully into Steve's chest. "A little stupid...but strong." he said with a cheeky smile, trying to brighten his glum friend up._

_Steve shook his head, curving his lips into his boyish lopsided smirk, and exhaled, "Bucky are you drunk?"_

_"Not yet I am not," Bucky replied with an indignant and gruff voice, still smirking._

Bucky slowly revolved his head, and stared up at his lifelong friend "I never meant to do those things to you, Steve," he confessed in a troubled voice, and frowned to himself. "If I am the real Bucky Barnes..." he allowed his voice to amass in the air, and hung his head low before concluding. "I don't deserve to have you has my friend. Not after what I did to you."

He shuffled his feline body to the edge of the bed, preparing to jump, the cursive words of HYDRA reemerged in his skull, pounding and making him feel dizzy. He needed to run. Shifting his gaze to the window, he found his exit and made a graceful jump off the mattress, only to be secured in Steve's arms. He "No..." hé hisse, but hé wasp rowing wear. "Steve...Forget about me..."

Steve moved his fingers along the cat's tensed back, "Bucky," he said with a crackling voice, tears pricked his eyes, as he glanced at the cat trembling against his chest. His heart swelled as he watched the cat open his glacial blue orbs and noticed a faint streak of brown in between the ears.

It wasn't until he stared at the left frontal limb of the animal, and he discovered the tiny crimson star painted on the metal plates. Something felt familiar about this stray. "Your name is now Bucky. And you do have a home..."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

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><p>In was almost reaching the midnight hour, when Steve returned from StarkTower, stripping his black shirt up and throwing it into the closet. He didn't bother flicking on the lights, he moved closer to the bed nostically staring at the black cat curled into a ball in the folds of sheets. A frail hint of a grimace veiled over his lips, and shifted his gaze to the window, staring intently at the white circle in the darkened sky, looming over skyscrapers It was a giant canvas, the lights and black slate matched every shade of the darkness, a thousand jewels clustered into obscured shapes.<p>

Feeling the dull ache arise in his chest, Steve tore his crystal blue embers away from the window, trying to look for something to help him avoid from slipping back into the void. His mind wandered elsewhere. He was entering the cervices of his memory pools, reaching an impasse of realm that held olden images of Bucky smiling and laughing next to him, and teasing him about his spangled suit. Those were good memories to hold onto, and never allow to stray away in tears that rolled down his sharp cheekbones, and reminded him that he had failed his blood brother. His family and the person he had missed for seventy years in the ice chasms.

* * *

><p><em>"I bet I can get you smile, Stevie," Bucky jeered, standing to his best friend. His face was scruffy. He brown hair slicked back off his forehead and light blue eyes shining with brotherly love. He curved the edges of his full lips into a mischievous smirk, and then turned to look at Steve who was standing all regal and serious for the reel camera. "You know little Stevie was always the punk the fat Dalantey kids loved picking on, he used to come to my ma's house all bloodied and ugly with bruises, but for some damn reason, he was always okay to smile."<em>

_Bucky reached out a hand and grasped Steve's shoulder, firmly, "So yeah, this super soldier or whatever you guys call him, smiles through his pain. He looked at the young captain with an sincere gleam in his eyes. "No matter how much the big guys have him on the ropes...He will always find a away to crack a smile." And then, with a faint chuckle escaping his lips, he listened to Steve laugh and watched him smile for the camera. "To you folks back home, this here is my best friend ...Sometimes he acts stupid, but he has a big heart and I will never replace that for anything."_

_"Do you know how ridiculous you sound, Buck?" Steve grinned, laughing hearty. His eyes squinted as both of them suddenly entered a frenzy of laughter._

_"I least I'm wearing the American flag, Rogers," Bucky retorted back, dropping his head, and trying to contain his laughter. "I'll admit it's a good look for you..."_

_Steve nodded, "Yeah," he chuckled, "I'm glad you think so, because I got a spare for you to try on, Buck."_

_"Oh, joy, that will make us the star-spangled twins..."_

_Steve smiled. He couldn't help it._

* * *

><p>The memory had lulled him back into a dream- like state of the contentment he needed. A stifle of a smile tugged over his lips, as he allowed laughter to replay in his mind for a long moment of repeats.<p>

He remembered how Bucky sometimes snorted when he laughed, still keeping a smug smirk on his chiseled face whilst he had been standing near SSR home base all sweaty and uniform torn. Barnes had placed his caring hand on his shoulder looking deeply in his eyes with a proud gleam sparkling in his light blue irises, smiling like an idiot and easing the tension of the war around them. That had been the day he liberated the 107th soldiers from Zola's inhumane work camps-he was one who broke the restraints off of an incoherent and captured Bucky Barnes, and guided him to safety.

Everything crumbled into pieces as soon as he remembered the halcyon days, images he tried to erase, the horrors on battlefields with young men, noble in spirit lying on the soggy ground with their faces permanently frozen after bullets penetrated through their hearts. Destruction and smoldering remnants of buildings, crossfires of enemy shells flickering in the darkened sky, lightening up the front lines.

War became a suicide mission. It was selling your own soul, and allowing humanity to slip away. At first there was unbreakable valor and defiance etched on the hearts of young man in uniform. After a few treks across the barren wreckage of No Man's Land, crawling underneath barb wire, and listening to the deafening aftershocks of Tiger I tanks unleash their fury and destruction over the vacant landscape of invaded country sides and small towns.

The world around them became a dark and unforgiving. Coldness entered through their bones, hope dwindled when hearts of friends and blood brothers were filled with lead and the landscape with painted with spilled blood that departed from the good men of honor.

The restless ground carried the blood of the fallen, allowing each drop to travel through the fields. The smell of death hung in the air like a thick mist over a bog, a constant reminder of the cost of victory and defeat. There was no escape from the inevitable. No sense of reason and no hope to fight for when the bullets cut through the glades like knives.

Sounds of fighter planes, heavy allied bombers of the RAF crashing, men screaming out for their mother's names and souls fading were the daily knells to wake up to during the morning hours.

He couldn't block out the hardened truth of the grievances war engraved onto his heart.

_His marred hand was just out of reach, a mere few centimeters away. All he needed was a heartbeat to give him strength to make it before...Metal screeched and broke off the hinges._

_Bucky plummeted in a second of a glance. Time froze and tears readied to flow as a cry escaped Steve's lips. His friend disappeared into a snowy valley below with a bloodcurdling scream of fear and horror._

_His heart thudded to a halt and then dropped._

_The world around him shattered and faded into whiteness._

Gasping for heavy intakes of air, Steve felt his stomach clench and his pounding heart tightening his chest, his breathing ceased to exist in his lungs, and his knees gave up, crashing to the hardwood. He lowered his face into his large warm hands; covering up his eyes and digging his fingers into his forehead. He tried to erase the horrific image of his best friend falling off the train from his train, but the memory was persistent and potent, and wouldn't give him a modicum of peace. Over and over, the scene played itself in his head. He gritted his teeth, hard enough to make his gums tingle with numbness, wishing that everything would all just stop. He wanted to delete the memories out of his mind forever, the guilt of his failure and cowardice. The memories and the feelings stayed, torturing him incessantly.

That ear shattering cry as Bucky fell haunted him in the depths of his subconscious and there was no one there to put a hand on his shoulder, nothing to distract him from his nightmares. That was his punishment, to mourn for his friend alone in the darkness, and living with that heaviness of grief encased over his broken heart. It was a feeling of anguish, and almost like he had his soul ripped in half. He felt torn and undone.

Too many nights he had woken up bathed in sickening sweat, trembling and weeping with his pillow drenched with salty tears. He would always have to flick on the light and read case files from SHIELD. It was the only way to block out the images from his harrowed mind. He would get up before the crack of dawn and jog, allowing the cold wind to whip over his face and freeze the tears pricking in his blue eyes.

_You're my mission._

Steve removed his hands, slowly off his face, feeling the moisture of his sorrow gather in his cobalt irises, and staring bleary at the alloy shield leaned up against the dresser.

It was the last thing Bucky held before the train car door exploded open and sucked him out into the frigid air.

_You're my mission._

"No..." He screamed aloud and broken, trying to settle the tempest surging in his mind. His throat clogged up, and it felt like constricting of the walls of his raw throat was choking him, breathing was getting harder and straining to manage. "BUCKY!"

He pounded his fists into the wood, like he was trying to break the boards with his strong, forceful hands.

He knew he startled the cat, but held no regard for the cat's feelings. After all the years of holding in his pain and carrying on, he wanted to release some of the ever-present guilt and grief. His friend was dead. There was no more Bucky Barnes.

After all those heart numbing years of spending his days wishing to have him back, he was just a ghost of the young soldier and Brooklyn kid he used to be before Zola transformed and butchered him into the ruthless assassin programmed for restless attack. A cold hearted killer, nameless and lost behind the semblance of a monster.

"I'm sorry, Buck," he sobbed, no longer able to hold in his pain, he couldn't forbid his dejection to be unobstructed out of him.

* * *

><p>Hearing the measure of Steve's despondent words, Bucky's eyes snapped open, hazed and confused in the darkness. The piercing blue irises were a devoid of olden pain and understanding, and a harboring sense of recognition.<p>

Within a second later, he jumped quickly off the bed and stalked closer to Steve, cautious. Steve was still trapped in his delusions, his face hardened with anger and eyes livid and filmed with smoldering tears. He couldn't tolerate the pain any longer, everything had been pouring out of him and he barely settled his watery gaze at the moving dark shape careening towards him. The black cat. The stray he saved from becoming a smear of ebony fur on the street.

"Steve," Bucky meowed, low, but enough to get the super-soldier's attention. Metal paw lifted and ears flattened aback.

Resting his forehead over his knee, Steve cried into the denim of his jeans, his lips tightened into an expression of anguish. "I just want you back, Buck." he sniffled pressing the bridge of his nose into the hardness of muscle. "The real you-Not that killing machine." he said adamantly, biting on his lower lip. He knew it was his fault. Bucky's death and resurrection was his greatest failure, and he would own that like everything else.

He needed to become strong again, to not allow defeat shackle him from his duties of protecting the world. It's not what Barnes' would have wanted. "You were always there for me-No matter how much I put you through, you never left my side. I failed you. If only I let go and made the jump. We would have come back home...Back to Brooklyn." He mewled out another weak sob.

Suddenly, Bucky felt his heart thud to a halt in his chest. He brought his paw to Steve's leg, and held it firmly on the drenched and constricting denim.

"I am here, Stevie," he slowly lifted his icy blue eyes, intently watching Steve's heated and sharp cheeks glisten with tears. "I'm here, well, maybe not what you expected...It's me in this stupid cat body." he choked out, feeling warmth of his own tears leak from his feline eyes. "I will always be your friend...I know who am I now, Steve. I know my name and a few other things." His voice was a little hiss. "I am figuring out what those HYDRA jerks have done to me. Why I'm...A cat."

Steve wiped the tears that rolled effortlessly down his face and dripped off his lips. He pulled his knees up to his chest, shifting a gaze at the cat and reached out a hand. At first Bucky reacted his claws, defensively, but then he allowed his friend to scoop him up from under his tensed belly.

"Just watch the ribs, Cap," he warned, familiarity now rose in his voice. He felt Steve cradle him in the nest of his strong biceps. "Steve...I know you can't understand me, but I just want you to know that I've missed you so much." It felt right for him to say that to the super-soldier.

Steve narrowed his eyes, listening to the cat softly purr. He didn't want to disturb the animal, he tried to breath, but everything hurt. Keeping his gaze settled on the ball of fur, he felt the sense of a friend brush over his bones, and he cried. His tears landed into Bucky's silky fur as they both closed their eyes, allowing the pain seep out the wounds they kept hidden from view.

* * *

><p><strong>AN : A big thank to my amazing Beta reader.**


	9. Chapter 9

Steve flipped to another page in the old album and sighed for what felt like the hundredth time since he began going through the pictures. He was stretched out on his bed, as he had been for more than an hour, looking over some of the only tangible memories he had of his friends. One in particular was on his mind.

These photo albums had been made to honor all of the Howling Commandos, but since Bucky had been such a central figure in the group, he appeared in many different pictures. Steve gazed longingly at a shot of himself standing with Bucky after a long mission. Both of them were absolutely filthy and even slightly wounded, but they were smiling brightly. Steve remembered that day; after a week of terrible travel, Bucky had cheered him up with friendly mud fight. That cocky jerk could always find some way of making everything alright.

A tear leaked from the Captain's eyes and he brushed it away quickly and moved to the next page. Each picture was a precious piece of time, and although it hurt Steve's heart to look at them, it was also somehow healing. If only he could have Bucky again.

_"So let me get this straight, Stevie," Bucky teased, taking another swig from his canteen blatantly, ignorant to the biting cold marching over his chiseled face. He was leaning against a wall, his whole body sagged and exhausted. His blue eyes held a intense stare on his best friend sitting attentively upright in a wooden chair, his broad arms folded over his uniformed chest, struggling with the amount of muscle mass constricting against his pectorals. He wasn't used to having a hulking body of a modern gladiator. They were sitting in a safe farm house, alone in the dim flickers of waxen candlelight, the canvas of winter became a contrast of light and darkness as flecks of snow start to fall from the thick clouds hovering above the desolated fields surrounding the property. Their weapons were armed, , senses on high alert and spirits defiant. Bucky felt his lips twitch upward into a a faint simper as he kept his eyes latched on Steve. "You enlisted shortly after I took those dames dancing at the pier?"_

_Steve shrugged his shoulders, nonchalantly "That was only the half of it, Buck." he answered, looking up at his dumbfounded friend. "After I was enlisted things at first didn't go so well-I was pathetic during training, but I showed them that it wasn't about strength and muscle to fight in a war, it was about having the guts to fight for something to believe in. That is freedom, Buck." he said firmly, his crystal blue eyes glint in the shadows cloaking over his commanding features._

_Listening to the measure of Steve's words, Bucky felt his heart seize into his chest, he turned his head, and watch the snow cascade blankly over the looming trees outside. He flicked his eyes down, frowning to himself. "I told you not to follow me here, Steve." he said, his deep voice, low and haunted. "You always think that you've got something to prove...That you're trying to show the world that Steve Rogers can be a good soldier." He pressed his lips into a tight line, and clenched his hands to his sides. "You know after I left Brooklyn...I sometimes dreamed that when I returned home I would find your grave and you were gone because I wasn't there for you..." he choked out, and then an onslaught of emotions broke over his face._

_"Bucky, you have always been there for me, you don't need too, " Steve narrowed his eyes for a long moment, and then he got up slowly from the table as he registered the pain hidden beyond the dark haired soldier's pale blue eyes. He felt a heaviness press into his chest, as he extended out his hand, gripping Bucky's tensed shoulder. "You don't need too ever think that you've failed me. You have always been there during the worse and best of times...I thank you for that, Bucky Barnes. Without you watching my back ...There would be no Steve Rogers-No Captain America."_

_"My folks wanted to adopt you after your Ma died, we could have been brothers," Bucky responded, his voice a trembling at the constant and tearing sensation in his chest. He looked distraught and languished like he had been wounded, not moving just standing stoic and waiting for tears to roll down his face. "Now I see we have always been brothers..." He placed his gloved hand over Steve's sturdy armored shoulder. "I will never stop protecting you...I will always be your big and stupid brother."_

Steve clenched his hands into fists and closed his eyes. Why hadn't he caught Bucky's arm in time? Why did his brother have to fall? Steve felt a burden of guilt on his chest as he thought of all the horrors his friend had endured at the hands of Hydra. All of them could have been prevented if only he had stretched out his arm just a little farther.

"Bucky," he sobbed, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Steve wished more than anything that he could pour out his sorrow to his friend face to face. But with the Winter Soldier proving even more elusive than Cap had feared, Steve found himself becoming weary of the chase. He had sworn to pursue Bucky until his strength failed him, but what about after?

Steve's ponderings were interrupted when he felt the bed beneath him move. Turning his gaze, he saw that the black cat had gracefully jumped onto the mattress next to him. Somehow the feline's presence was soothing, almost like the company of a good friend. Rogers smiled and reached out to stroke the cat.

"In a way, you're like your namesake, Bucky," Steve said to the cat as he scratched its shoulders. "You're a good listener and a good comforter."

"No I'm not," Bucky hissed, mashing his needle-point fangs into his furry lips. He felt the pressure of Steve's hand push against his arched shoulder blades. He offered no resistance, submitting to faint awareness. He listened to the gravity in Steve's words, each breath had become emblazon in his ears, and his blue eyes darkened ever so slightly, trying to make mental calculations and how much blood volume was flowing in his raging his veins and coursing immensely through his system, but his paws had started to tremor, and the impulse to lash out an attack faded when he spared a glance into his friend's solemn blue eyes, the same color that made the red flashes vanish from his foggy vision.

As he felt his heart resettle in his chest, he decided to speak once again, but his voice seemed clogged and throat raw as air reached his lungs. The surface of his wounds didn't boil or hiss as he breathed, and he wasn't hesitant when he stared up at Steve. Those were good indications that his mind had grown stable enough for his to function without his hostile nature, he stared up passively at the super-soldier with resentment, his muzzle twitched slightly into a scowl as he kept his paws latched on the covers. His face looked withdrawn, ebony fur disheveled and ears flattened against his head. He nudged against Steve's arm purring with despondence ragging up his throat. "I'm not a good friend, Steve." he meowed, trying to jar Steve's attention.

The cat's meowing almost seemed too systematic to be random noises, but Steve couldn't place why. In fact, it almost seemed like the poor feline was issuing a lament. Steve continued to stroke the cat, letting a long sigh escape his lips. A tiny noise made him look to the part of the room where the kittens were nuzzled together. It appeared that they were waking up, and Steve wondered if they were hungry.

"I bet you guys could use some food," he said aloud, glancing back at the adult cat near his side. "Does milk sound good?"

Steve stood from the bed and walked across the cool floor to his refrigerator. Inside was a partially full carton of milk, and he placed it on the counter, looking at the black cat in his peripheral vision. It had hopped down from the bed and was stalking cautiously towards him. He smiled and talked to the feline as he located a saucer.

"Where did you and your little companions come from, anyway?" he asked, pouring the milk into the small bowl. He set it onto the hard ground near the kittens and then drew out a glass for himself. When his cup of milk was ready, he put away the jug and settled on the floor, crossing his legs and staring at the tiny kittens as they began to move.

The little female wobbled on her soft paws closer to the super-soldier. Her nose twitched as she caught a vague whiff of milk, but she froze in mid-step, timid and unsure whether to approach Steve as her emptied stomach growled, making her back arch up slightly. She meowed, but it sounded like a cry of distress, and her ears flattened all the while her ghostly sapphire eyes took in the unfamiliar surrounding. She needed her mother, and it in her instincts to meow for assistance, she and her twin brother was only a few weeks old, the rest of the litter didn't survive from birth, and without Bucky as her protector she would have died from starvation. Instead of approaching the bowl, she lowered her body, placing both of her frontal paws together and locked her eyes back at Steve.

"A little skittish, I suppose," Steve mumbled under his breath.

He pressed his hands against the floor and scooted a few feet backward, giving the kittens an unhindered path to the milk. He cast a sidelong glance at the black cat, wondering whether it would come to drink or not. If the kittens would not eat on their own, perhaps their guardian would persuade them. Steve knew by their size that the babies surely required frequent meals, and he hoped that the event in the street had not traumatized them.

Steve took a long drink of the cool milk in his glass and wiped the remains from his lips. He set the cup down, and then saw that the adult was indeed coming over to the kittens and the saucer set out for them. Steve, who noticed small details as a habit, had marveled at the grace with which cats carry themselves, but this strange feline seemed even more meticulous as it stalked across the apartment. Its sharp, perceptive eyes scanned the area, picking up all movement and assessing any sign of danger. The animal's manner was as precise as that of highly trained agent, or perhaps even more accurate than that.

Steve slowly stood up from his place and walked to the table where a pad of paper and pencil lay, having been left there a few days ago. Returning to a sitting position on the floor, Steve studied the graceful animals before him and began to sketch a drawing of them. Drawing had always helped him relieve stress during the War, and since he had awakened from the ice, he had found the cure no less apt.

The drawing slowly took form as the cats went about their meal. As Steve had hoped, the oldest feline slowly made its way to the saucer and coaxed the kittens to drink. Steve smiled at the scene before him, adding shadow and detail with his skilled pencil. When his picture was finished, he stood from his place and set the pad of paper back on the table. Turning around, he looked at the black feline and frowned.

"I suppose you could do with some meat," he said, walking over to the fridge.

He wasn't sure what kind of meat a cat would like, but he figured that pretty much anything would do, especially for a hungry stray. He foraged through the drawers and at last found some turkey lunch meat. He put the container on the counter and took out a knife, cutting the food into small, bite-size pieces. He set these on a plate and lowered it to the floor.

Steve clicked his tongue, attracting the attention of the black cat. "Want some more lunch?" he asked gently.

The imploring words lulled Bucky to cock his head up, "I'm not eating that," he scoffed or rather hissed, arching his back with disgust. "Why do you care about my life?" he questioned, retracting his claws out from his furry digits. He honestly didn't understand. He hated the very thought of the total amount of lives he destroyed while under the influence of HYDRA's control. It was a sicking sense to feel so much guilt, to carry pain and fight against replays of nightmares consuming his disjointed mind. It made his stomach clench and churn. He hated the thought of killing another innocent without reason, and most of all he hated feeling the weight of his sin dragging his soul even further into the pit of his self-damnation. If he could reset time, turn back the clocks and reenter his past, he would have found away to prevent Zola from saving his wounded body from severe hypothermia-he would have died a honorable man and a good friend. He would have spared so many lives if he didn't been resurrected on the operating table.

"I don't deserve this from you, Steve," Bucky lowered his head, and felt a dull pang in his chest, praying that somehow the super-soldier would hear his broken voice carried with hardened disdain. "You're a good friend...And I'm a monster."

Perhaps it was indeed that Bucky's prayer was heard and answered, or maybe it there was another, unknown force at work in the situation. No matter what the cause, it now happened that what had once been incoherent meows coming from the black cat's mouth were now heard by Steve as real, English words. Bucky also noticed the change at once, but for him it was not nearly as shocking as it was for his friend.

Steve started up quickly and looked warily around the apartment, trying to find the real source of the voice. His senses had of course told him that the cat had spoken, but his reason had just as quickly dismissed such an idea and fumbled for another option. All he could assume was that there was an intruder in the room, one who sounding remarkably like Bucky.

Steve slowly edged to the wall where his shield was propped up, and when he was within range, he leapt towards it, grabbing it from its place and preparing for an attack. None came. He scanned every crevice of the premises, but he could find no one; nothing was even out of place.

"Who's there?" he asked in an authoritative voice.

He chanced a glance at the cat, a part of him still partially believing that it had been the one to speak. Looking at it now and being sure that it was truly just an animal, he wondered how he could have been so easily misled by his usually keen ears. Just as he turned his gaze elsewhere, the cat spoke again.

"Wait," Bucky drew out a sharp breath, off balanced on his four paws, unsure if Steve visually heard his voice. He understood human emotions, and the kind of grief one carries that piled on their shoulders when they left nothing left to fight for, but he never had to deal with this moment as barriers had been broken the moment he gazed longingly into Steve's gentle, and yet guarded blue eyes. It felt like a method of interrogation he had acquired back in the Red Room-target acquisition meant termination,or at the very least handing oneself to the interrogator for punishment. It had been his lifestyle for nearly a decade, and he was immune to pain in any form-not compassion or friendship. Silence has always been his refuge , but now he was reaching an impasse of emotions and urges to kill. Inside his transformed body, Bucky felt his chagrin threatening to seep out, but he stood his ground, firmly and unyielding and leveled an insurable glare at Steve.

Russian didn't roll off his sand paper-like tongue-it faded in his throat. During his training in the Soviet underground, his teachers only took the time to teach him the rudiments of the language, small and authoritative words when commanding his operatives when in reconnaissance, but now his voice changed into rich, brash and America-it came out clearly when he spoke, even though his mind is still programmed to issue out in Russian. The transformation gave him back his old voice-the hearty Brooklyn tone with a slur of Irish. He took a deep breath and forced himself to speak once more, without the low purring noise of a feline. It wasn't as difficult not like it was a few days before-maybe his humanity was slowly returning to him. He had to take a chance.

"Don't freak out, punk...I mean Steve." He jumped gracefully on the chair, and then climbed onto the counter staring at the dumbfounded captain. "I know it's hard for you to understand this, but you need to shut up and listen."

Steve's mouth went dry and his jaw hung open. He didn't know what to think or how to respond. The cat was talking. What other explanation could there be? No one said the cat was real, but it definitely was talking. Steve had never heard of robotic animals, but he supposed that someone might have invented them by now. If computers could fit into one's pocket these days, what were the limits?

However insane and suspicious the situation was, Steve could not completely rule out the possibility that this cat was somehow connected with Bucky, and so he did as the cat said. He shut up and listened. He could not risk hurting Bucky, even if the chances of this feline really being in any way connected with his friend were slim at best.

"That's better," the black cat said with a bite in his gravelly voice. He sat on the steel counter top, long tail swaying and pupils darkened as he held Steve's visage in his daunting gaze.. "I'm not some stupid house cat if that's what you think...I'm happen to be a remorseful and dangerous assassin who crossed paths with an old hag and somehow I became this fleabag." he grumbled under his breath, lifting up his metal limb, allowing Steve to spare a blank glance at the red star painted on the chrome plates of his left frontal limb. "Look familiar?"

Of course it looked familiar. Steve had dwelt on the image of Bucky for days and days, unable to forget it for long. That arm, now that he thought about it, looked exactly that the Winter Soldier's arm to the most minute detail.

Steve managed a nod, but no words would come out of his mouth. His throat seemed locked up, and he knew that if he tried to speak, it would come out as stuttering nonsense, so he didn't even try. He simply kept his eyes fixed on the cat and continued to listen.

"Steve do you know me?" Bucky's voice trailed away. His eyes closed, and he was lost for a long moment, long gone memory emerged in his mind, and he refused to stare at his friend. A hint of a frown curled his muzzle before he paused to seal off his tears. Crying, yes, he was crying, feeling emotions slip away and drip down his fur. A low and throaty moan rumbled out of him. "I want to remember you, there are some sometimes that I have forgotten, but everything else seems like a blur...It feels like my past doesn't exist." he meowed wistfully, and lowered his body, tucking his paws under his stomach, and trembling as his ebony fur became slick with more tears. "I never meant to do those things..."

Steve felt pity and love wash over him, and although he dared not touch the cat, for if it was indeed Bucky, he might not react well to any sort of contact, Steve felt his tongue loosened from shock. Taking in a shaky breath, he cleared his throat and spoke.

"I know you didn't, Buck. Hydra's orders and the blood that resulted from them stains their own hands, not yours. It wasn't your fault."

Steve desperately wanted to ask for more information, specifically about Bucky's current predicament, but he decided against it. Surely the trauma of being a cat was more than enough, and Bucky definitely didn't need someone grilling him about the whole situation. If he wanted to speak of it, he would. Steve looked into the cat's face, trying to see his friend in it and send him comfort without words. As he gazed, he did think he saw Bucky looking out at him from behind the cat's perceptive blue eyes, and he smiled as encouragingly as he could.

"It's going to be okay, Bucky."

"Okay?" Bucky snarled as he was shaken out of his daze by Steve's empathetic words. His fur bristled and feline muzzle carved into a feral scowl. "I'm a drat cat,"

"Well," Steve said, running his hand through his blond hair and sighing, "you won't be forever. If you were changed into one, we'll just have to change you back. There's got to be a way."

Bucky scorned irritably, "I can think of one," his voice drew darker, and claws spring out. "Put a bullet in the hag's head, and watch her bleed until she reverses this curse or whatever it's called. It's effective and plus it will spare your life..."

"My life?" Steve asked, unable to mask his surprise. "What have I got to do with it?" Realizing that his tone was bit too aggressive, Steve lowered his voice and added an additional question. "Does this involve me, too?"

The whole affair was ridiculous and way out of his league, but Steve still had to tread carefully and in a manner worthy of his friend. No matter what right Steve had to panic, this wasn't Bucky's fault, as Steve had previously said. He needed to work with Bucky on this one, just as they had always dealt with their problems in the past.

Bucky tore his eyes away from Steve's firm gaze, and huffed out a frustrated sigh. He sensed the sudden distress whirling inside Steve, and the anguish the pliant soldier tried to hide. " If we can't find away to change me back into a human...You will end up like yours truly, Steve." he pointed out harshly, but it had to be said.

Steve's eyes grew wide, and he sucked in a breath of shock, but said nothing. In fact, he was silent for a while, thinking hard about what had transpired. All this was quite a bit to take in, and he had no idea how to proceed whatsoever. After a few moments in thought, he spun around and walked over to the table where his phone was resting. He would never be used to this piece of technology, but he had learned how to send a text.

"Bucky, this is beyond me," he admitted, giving his friend a desperate look. "Would S.H.I.E.L.D. have any intel about how this...transformation could occur? I realize that you may not want to discuss this, but we don't have a lot of options. How exactly did this happen? If this hag woman you've mentioned is connected with Hydra, then there might be some information about her in an old file somewhere. I have friends that could dig it up."

"No," Bucky instantly reacted, leaping off the counter and moving to the table, quick paces until he stood in front of Steve, he had to reach the captain on a serious level. "I can't be compromised, Steve. If the rogue agents of HYDRA discovered that I'm a cat..." He halted a breath, and stole a glance at the dozy kittens lapping their tongues in the bowl of milk. They were targets. "They won't stop until every stray is dead." he affirmed, grimly.

Steve knew that he could trust his contacts within S.H.I.E.L.D., but he decided not to press Bucky on the issue. If Bucky was unwilling, then they would find another solution. Steve sighed and set the phone back onto the table. Then, taking a seat in a chair so that he was on a level with the cat, he looked into its eyes and pleaded.

"Bucky, I know this is all out of whack, and it's horrible and unjust, but we need all the details we can get so that we can properly examine the facts. Would you please tell me everything that happened? Please? I want to get you back to normal, pal, and I can't do that if I don't even know all that happened in the first place. Maybe if you go over it aloud, we'll notice something you'd missed before, and we can capitalize on it."

Bucky acutely listened to the measure of firmness in Steve's voice, and felt the irony of the situation. For all those restless nights of caring for a skinny blonde haired boy while he fought against high fevers, infections and shallow breathing, he was now the one who needed Steve's protected, and although he couldn't deny it, he was glad to have his best friend watching his back. "I can try to remember, but I don't think it will be enough to help you with the details." he sighed evenly, and then looked down at his paws. "I do know the hag or witch worked for HYDRA...She knew me." his voice became soundlessly distant.

"Well," Steve said, giving a smile of encouragement, "that's certainly a start. Perhaps this was their plan all along. We should probably go out and look for this HYDRA witch herself."

The conversation was abruptly cut off by a series of loud meows coming from the kittens. Bucky looked over at them and sighed, shaking his head slightly. Who would have thought that a couple of kittens could be so much work?

"They need me," he said, jumping gracefully from the table. He walked quickly over where the kittens were yowling near the empty saucer. He smelled their familiar scent and licked each of their foreheads. "What do you want?" he asked, somewhat irritated.

"Maybe they just need some rest," Steve suggesting, getting up from his chair and coming over to the scene. "Let's go to the bed; they can sleep, and we can talk."

Bucky agreed to the logical proposal, and he grabbed the small female by the scruff and began carrying her across the floor. As he did so, he received another painful reminder of what he had been reduced to. He shut his eyes tightly, trying to forget what had happened to him, though he was careful not to harm the kitten clenched in his jaws.

"Bucky, let me take her," Steve offered, stooping down and gently taking the kitten from Bucky's grasp. In his other hand, he held the little male, who was still letting out a string of discontent moaning. Bucky said nothing out loud, but inside he thanked Steve for his consideration. Steve could not understand what it was like to be a cat, but he at least had the sense and care to try to help.

Bucky leapt to the soft sheets of the bed and sat up, back erect and tail curled around his feet. Steve placed the kittens near to Bucky's side and moved the blankets around them to keep them warm. Then he himself sat on the mattress and waited for Bucky to say something. Looking into the cat's eyes, he saw a struggle, and he felt pity once again stab his heart.

"Bucky," he said quietly, "are you alright?"

It was a stupid question: Bucky was not alright, and Steve immediately regretting asking it, but now it was too late. Bucky's eyes flashed at him in anguish and rage, and for a moment, Steve thought he might lash out. The cat remained in its spot, but his back arched and his fur stood on end as he vented his complaint.

"I'm an animal, Steve!" he choked out. He pointed with his dark paw at his own furry body. "A worthless, mangy animal!"

"No, you're not," Steve quickly and adamantly assured. Bucky looked up with tear-filled, desperate eyes, just waiting for Steve to try to make it all better when he did not think it possible. "You're stuck," Steve continued, "but we're going to get you back to normal. You're not a cat, Sergeant Barnes! And you're not a weapon either. You are a human being under a curse, and I'm going to reverse it; I promise."

Bucky felt a tiny flame of hope flicker in the depths of his soul at Steve's words. The Captain sounded so certain, so sure that everything was really going to turn out right, that Bucky had a hard time disbelieving him. Then a sudden memory rose in his mind, and he saw Steve again in his past, embracing him. At this moment, he wished for nothing else.

"Steve," he said slowly, fighting through the confusion and entanglement of HYDRA's conditioning. "My friend..."

Steve couldn't wait any longer. He reached out his hand and drew Bucky close to his chest, hugging him tightly and forgetting for a moment the cruel fate that had befallen his friend. The only moment that he let his mind return to the present was when he felt the nudge of a kitten's nose on his leg. The two baby cats had snuggled up by his side, almost as if they sensed the closeness of the brothers.

Bucky closed his eyes and let all thoughts of his condition fade away as he felt the warmth of Steve's solid shoulder against him.

At this moment, he truly believed that all the wounds of HYDRA would be washed and cleaned in time, and perhaps he could really be Bucky Barnes again. Steve's friend.

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><p><strong>A big thank you to my co-writer Thalion Estel who did wonders in this chapter. Team work makes writing so much more fun, and I couldn't have done this chapter without her. Thank you to all my readers and followers. I hope everyone has a blessed and merry Christmas. Enjoy the season.<strong>


	10. Chapter 10

**{10}**

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><p>Bucky couldn't tolerate another moment of being a confined house cat. He drew out sharp seething breaths with his claws retract where he stood. Anger was solidifying in his slender body, ebony fur raised as he glared intently at the door; his pupils morphed into diamond slits in the center of ghostly azure irises as his hind legs bent, and front limbs latched onto the white painted wood. He responded to his torrent distress; lashing his claws and scraping the wood as he hissed out in livid rage, wanting to tear his own fur out as the absence of his calamity faded with heavy pants of heated breath. It was painful obvious that his humanity was fading. He knew there wasn't much time before he would become truly lost in the vessel of the condemned feline. The anger that flowed in his system wasn't just for his life, but Steve Rogers. How could he follow his best friend to share the same fate? Steve was a good man, the best there was and he ultimately didn't deserve a lifetime stuck inside a weak animal.<p>

After hearing what escaped from one of the kitten's mouth, Bucky snapped his head around, staring, blue eyes fixed on the female. She displayed to sign of resistance towards him, her little form stalked closer to him as she meowed with a muzzy noise, which to his sharp hearing was annoying, but she was persistent. He was burning with frustration, and he was hissing out a warning that didn't halt against his sand paper tongue, "Get away from me," he said in an harsh automatic response, suddenly enraged by her presence. "I will kill you..." Then he stopped. And the kitten froze in her tracks. Everything ceased. He lowered himself down, his blue eyes focused on her frightening body, and he looked down at his paws, metal and fur. He pulled back, breaths racked in low and disturbed sounds that hitched from his mouth.

No. No, no, no. Of all the things to stare at...Guilt and loathing remorse swept over him, invading every crevice of his twisting soul, and then he swallowed and shook his head at the sudden rush of tears. She was afraid of him because of his threatening stance, almost scared out her mind as she shivered under his dark shadow and mewled with frantic cries. And then, Bucky lunged out for her, and barricaded her distance with his paw; cautiously pushing her closer to him. He was trying to calm her down, even despite what had occurred when his Winter Soldier programming haunted his mind. He wanted to regain her trust, but there was no reconciling ends of the impasses between humanity and interfaces; no sense to feel or to understand his ravaging emotions.

The precious form of life trembling under his icy gaze, she was his to protect.

Bucky sucked his furry lips disdainfully into a pout, "I didn't mean to scare you, it's hard for me to adapt. I'm a human..." He trailed off with a distant cadence in his rough voice... "A wounded soldier."

Just then, a noise from the hallway outside the apartment signaled that Steve had returned. The captain unlocked the door and came inside, locking the bolt behind him. His athletic shirt was wet in some places and his hair was greasy, but he hardly looked like he had just exercised. His breath was even and his stride was still as energetic as ever.

His bright eyes soon saw something that troubled him, though. The door he had just shut was covered in scratches that certainly hadn't been there before. It didn't take a detective to know that these had been made by a distressed cat, and Steve turned worriedly to find his transformed friend.

"Bucky," he called. Stepping away from the door, he soon spotted the black cat curled up next to one of the kittens. He moved towards the pair with great concern. "What happened? Are you alright?"

"Fine," a hoarse, bitten escaped from the black cat, he stroked his muzzle against the kitten's head. He recognized the calmness of touch. "She...I sort of frightened her."

"I was talking about you," Steve said, sitting down on the floor and looking into the cat's deep eyes. "What's going on?"

There was a vague swell in his chest, Bucky lowered his head in disdain, "Look at me, Steve," a rumble from the thrum dejection vibrated his ribs. "I'm a cat...I'm not James Barnes anymore; and I think should accept me as this creature. I deserve this life." He sealed his eyes shut for a long moment, feeling the surface of tears edging to pour out of him. "I hurt a lot of good people, destroyed lives all because I was the gun and HYDRA pulled the trigger. I don't want you to look at me with pathetic face, this is my reward for the crimes I have done..."

Steve felt as if his very soul had been cloven in two by Bucky's despairing words. He reached his hand forward and rested it on the cat's sharp shoulder blade. Taking in a breath and swallowing a lump in his throat, he tried to think of the best way to give his friend hope.

"Bucky, HYDRA committed those crimes, not you. You yourself are a victim of their offenses more than anyone else. You don't have to blame yourself. It's like you said; HYDRA used you as their gun to kill lots of people. But who in their right mind would be angry at a weapon for its wielder's crimes? Bucky, you don't have to believe HYDRA's lies; they don't control you anymore.

"And you won't be a cat for long. I promise you that we can discover how to fix this; if there's a way to transform someone into a cat, and then there's got to be a way to reverse it. We will find that way."

The weight of remorse of his friend's words sliced through him. Waiting for the answers wasn't going to change him back into a human. He needed to retrace the events of the transform, bisect the missing details and end this tortuous curse that kept him hostage in feline's body. Lifting his head, Bucky searched for resolved in Steve's light blue eyes. Hope. Enough to tell him there was a chance to escape from the curse, but also enough to make doubt reality. His mind, heart and soul twisted as a rush of languished torment invaded him once more. Grabbing the amount of courage he needed, the cat faced the super-solider with pleading eyes, "You have to stay away from me, Steve...If we can't break this curse..." He bit his tongue, swallowing back the coppery tang of blood as he exclaimed. "You'll become a cat..."

With that grave response, Bucky stalked back to the door, and he whispered, «I can live with this curse, Steve, but I can't live if you're not free from it."

"And I can't live if you're not free from it either," Steve affirmed with as much resolve as he could muster. "I'd rather be cursed a thousand times than stay as I am, only to know that I didn't help my friend when I could have. When I should have. I couldn't take that kind of dishonor; please don't ask me to."

Bucky shook his head, "The world needs Captain America to throw his mighty shield, not the Winter Soldier to fill a few graves." he echoed back, coldly.

"The world has five other Avengers to keep it save," Steve replied, still trying to stand his ground, "not to mention all its police and soldiers. But the Winter Soldier only has one friend, and that friend is not leaving him. That would be a contradiction of everything I stand for! Bucky, I was barely able to live when you fell and I thought you were dead because of my failure. How could I go on if I knew I had simply given up? Do you ask me to live in such agony?"

"I never asked for any of this," Bucky slashed out a paw, his blue eyes livid with hate. "I never asked to be unmade and lose the only woman I have ever loved because of HYDRA's morbid dealings with the devil to create their perfect world of order!"

"I know, Bucky!" Steve said quickly, hoping to calm his friend down. He was quite curious about the woman Bucky mentioned, but it was clearly not the right time to ask about it. Instead, Steve kept his thoughts and words focused on the current problem. "And no one's blaming you for what has happened. If they do, they'll have me to reckon with. What I'm saying is that I'm not leaving you to this fate, even if helping you endangers me. You don't need to argue about it, because this is the only option. The subject is not open for debate. I am going to help you, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner we can lift this curse."

Steve crossed his arms and hardened his expression, hoping that his stubbornness would be respected and maybe even admired by his companion. Inside, he felt anything but resilient. It seemed like his heart had been torn apart, and every time he looked into Bucky's eyes, searching for the soul entrapped in a cat's body, his inner pain was renewed. But he had to be strong for his friend. He would not fail Bucky again.

Bucky huffed, claws dug into the floor, "Fine," he hissed back vehemently, averting his eyes from Steve's firm stare. "If it doesn't work..."

"Then so be it." Steve huffed, his will worn thin by the argument, but a smile of triumph pulling at his lips. "Now, how about finding the way to reverse this transformation?"

The cat felt numb for a moment; he looked up at Steve with solemnity in his pale blue eyes, he might as well be dead if Steve didn't perform his heroics on the street, and save him. Memories quickly returned to him as he inhaled the air heavily, desperately welcoming those hollow and searing words of the morbid incantation back inside of him. "I remember the old hag saying something about a true friend can save me..." He whispered, memories of the night in graveyard were slowly returning, but like his mind, they were scattered and incoherent to the absence of thought.

The ones that did however were the most alarming and calamitous thoughts of a deranged witch butchered his soul with her wrath...Dark magic...condemnation...fate...solitary...and a friend...

"You're one who can reverse the curse, Steve." Bucky managed, weakly. His blue eyes hardly kept tears from the dull ache in his chest. His heart ceased to beat, as the next thought sent a spike of warmth through the empowering panic that overtook him.

"Anna..." The name of his forgotten love returned to him along with clear image of an angelic beauty that radiated love and trust, but also turmoil and anguish. The feelings attached to those were enough to life a broken man from the edge of despair and fill him with a sense of everlasting strength. He clung to those memories and feelings like a lifeline, afraid they would evaporate and fade as she did from the moment she confessed her love to him...The Winter Soldier...HYDRA's killing machine...The ghost.

She was gone.

"Well," Steve said, snapping Bucky out of the past and back to the present. "If we know that I can reverse the curse, then we're one step closer to our goal. And Bucky..." Steve left his heart again stabbed with pity as he reached out his hands towards the friend that he loved as a brother. "Buck, if there's another innocent victim of HYDRA out there, a friend of yours, I promise that I will do all in my power to find them. Okay? Your friends are my friends."

Steve's hands closed around the small, black body of the graceful feline and pulled the creature close. Steve wrapped his friend in a warm embrace; tears pricking his eyes as he thought of all Bucky had gone through. That Brooklyn kid had supported Steve for his whole life; it was time to return the favor.

Feeling the empowering warmth of his best friend shielding over his displaced form; Bucky closed his and nestled his body against Steve's chest. He sighed contently.

A dull vibration began to course over the cat's body, and a sweet, calm sound emanated from Bucky's mouth. He was purring. A smile crept up Steve's face, and a chuckle escaped his lips.

"Bucky, are you purring?" he asked, a teasing tone touching his voice lightly enough not to make Bucky clamp up against him.

"Shut up, punk," the cat managed to answer him as he drifted into peaceful slumber.

He felt safe.

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><p><strong>AN: A big thank to Thalion Estel for co-writing this story with me. The next chapter will have more detail about Anna and how she fits into the story. Enjoy and thank you.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

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><p>Oak branches contorted over the vacant grave site, contracting into a gray abyss of morning fog. A chilly November rain dripped from the sodden leaves and onto her sleek ebony fur. Her ember eyes were fixed at a marble marker, fading words of forgotten friend. It felt like ages since her paws roamed over the obscured area; in truth it had grown to become years. She held the lifetimes of people in her ageless eyes, watching them grow old in each passing drift of time. It was her curse to become an observer and comfort. She knew it in the depths of her mind that there was no chance of freedom...There was no hope of escaping from this life. And she was condemned. Imprisoned by torturous magic that encased her bones and trapped her spirit into a symbolic animal she had once deemed herself to be in her youth days. She had never envisioned humans becoming transformed into animal captives. It happened, that night when she stared into his ghostly blue eyes and saw his heart scattering.<p>

_James._

She closed her eyes, and imagined him when they were both dead and alive.

* * *

><p>(Flashback)<p>

She had been discarded from the eyes of HYDRA, left to rot without the warmth of his arms (flesh and metal) enclosed over her lithe form. Anna looked around over the cell, musty air invaded her nostrils as she reluctantly breathed in the stench of decay greeting her in all directions of her confinement; she had been condemned to live in the nest of scraps of fabric with only a dim flicker of candle light to keep her hope from fading as the coldness and darkness encroached around her trembling body.

It had been torture to listen to his horrific screams of utter anguish echo in her eardrums; she knew they were frying his brain, erasing his memories and falsifying his emotions with their interweaving orders. She spent years, looking at his disheveled existence melt away into the hardened gaze of the Winter Soldier, but she also spent her days bringing the true man back, through her loving caresses of her lips along the sharp clenched of his jaw; the warmth of her kiss on his frozen lips and the steady beat of her heart against his firm chest; she was in love with him so much that would offer her soul to HYDRA just to have one moment to stare into his pale blue eyes, and find him again. From the depths of her soul came the sounds of young woman begging to for her freedom; shedding tears for the life she wanted to have with him. It was too reminiscent of her days to feel the unrelenting bite of the cold penetrate in her bones and churn the acid in her stomach.

She had waited for hours, listening to the rusted bars of the cell screech open, and stared into the emotionless eyes of the old woman, Octavia Fleischer , a member of the occult, half German and Romanian, her face darkened with corrupted malice, and gray eyes filled with disgust. Some of the young female operatives, pegged her as a witch because of the morbid things she performed in the basement. She wasn't blessed with beauty, no, she was scarred by the demons of her past, left side of her face covered with a metallic plate that concealed her marred skin. She experimented on the weak, butchering them into hollow shells, and enslaving them into vessels that weren't human, but tragic results of her tortuous subjection. She loomed in front of Anna, glaring her down with her wraith like eyes, scowling as she sniffed the fear wafting in the air.

"The scent of death," she said with a gravelly voice, her eyes flashing. A smirk rose on her twisted face, the sight enough to make Anna cringe. "Marvelous isn't it?"

Anna made no response, and Octiva's sadistic grin quickly changed back into a frown. She pointed an accusing, claw-like finger at the young operative, her eyes narrowing as a predator surveying its prey.

"You must be enjoying the lovely chorus provided by your friend in there," the witch said, gesturing down the hall to the Red Room. "It is the anthem of HYDRA, and you will join the song in due time. But not without a familial prelude."

Anna's face betrayed her confusion and fear, and another wicked smile crept up the old hag's marred face. "Your brother-in-law performed his part very well; lots of screams. He was fun to listen to, before he died, that is." Her cold, cruel eyes showed absolutely no remorse as she continued. "Your dear sister and her unborn child will soon follow in his footsteps. Traitors are weaklings, and there can be no weaklings with HYDRA."

"Please spare their lives," Anna whimpered, lowering her head. Her heart urging her to look away so that she might be spared from the wicked gaze invading her wrenched form. It felt like a haze of momentary cowardice shrouded over her, as she narrowed her brown eyes, avoiding the ominous gray chasms piercing through the shadows. She'd chewed on her colorless lips. She had been hiding from them, protecting her secret, and keeping her younger sister safe. How could she conceal something like this from her handlers? Why didn't she tell him? How dare they try to murder her sister? Why couldn't she be strong enough to protect her own blood, instead of becoming a coward, "Ella doesn't deserve this... I deserve death..." She gritted her teeth, brown eyes became molten embers of defiance. "Not my sister."

"Both of you brats deserve death," snapped the occultist, her poisoned dipped nails clenching into a fist. "And you will both have it. You will be HYDRA's example of what happens to those who try to defy us. Get ready, little princess; you're about to be brought into my throne room."

Octavia waved a hand and two HYDRA guards appeared at the cell doorway. Seeing the anger and boldness in Anna's fierce eyes, Octavia added a little incentive. "The more you struggle, the longer and more painful it will be for her. And would you like to take a brief pause beside your dear assassin's room? I'm sure we can have some fun there, too. I have several little tricks I'd like to try out on him."

Anna looked down, dismayed, when tears coated her brown eyes "Leave him out of this!" she stormed through gritted teeth, fires of remorse burning in her.

"Then be a good little girl and come with me," the occultist chucked with cruelty, her voice a mixture between mocking and threatening. "Why don't come and see your broken soldier. Watch him lose everything with just a flick of a switch."

"You will never win," Anna resounded, her voice crackling with each pant of breath; slowly she reared her lithe form off cold ground, and staggered to the cell's doorway. "Evil never prevails."

The witch let out a cackle that sent a shiver up Anna's spine. She stepped aside to let her captive out of the door and, then began to lead the small troop down the hallway towards the basement's entrance. "That means precious little coming from you at this moment, dearie. You are already defeated and broken. I have already prevailed."

Anna glanced over her tensed shoulder, scowling darkly at the witch, "He will kill you..." she warned, with a measure of coldness in her strained voice. She was breathing out her words of desperation. "You can't run from him..."

The witch pivoted on her spiked heels, and then moved closer to Anna's face until they were only a few inches apart. Then in a swift stroke, Octavia lashed out and slapped Anna's face, leaving cruel, and reddened scratches with her long nails. Before Anna could react to the abuse, the hag grabbed her victim by the strands of hair and drew her up close again.

"Do not threaten me, girl," Octavia hissed, her foul breath nearly making Anna vomit. "The Soldier will feel pain for that remark, as will you." She gripped Anna's wrist and dug her claws into it, drawing blood quickly, but pushing down even harder. "Now shut your worthless trap and obey."

Octavia, huffing triumphantly, spun on her heels and resumed her walk down the hallway. But then she stopped, her evil heart eager to cause more pain. She held up a hand to the guards who were walking slightly behind her and faced Anna again, a smile curving on her cracked, blackened lips.

"Why don't we go and see your assassin?" she asked conceitedly; her smile growing slightly as her mind formulated the coming scene. "Would you like a last goodbye? I'm sure we can arrange a fine farewell gift for him."

Anna felt smoldering tear well in her eyes, she didn't want to face him-James. Hesitantly, she shook her head, "I don't want to see him...Not in that state."

"Excellent," murmured Octavia ignoring Anna's protests and nodding to the guards, who each took one of Anna's arms and held them fast. "Come," the witch said, heading for the door from whence screams of agony came. "I'm sure he'll be so happy to see you."

Anna roared, "No!"

Listening to the chorus of heart-wrenching howls of pain, Anna felt her felt quivering as her eyes became transfixed on the doors with the symbols of HYDRA painted on the tarnished steel walls. All the accumulating thralls of distress, horror and rage just made her lash out. "I don't want to see him strapped down to the chair, screaming out names of people who don't exist; especially the one that he keeps on repeating from the past. A captain of some sort..." She seethed through her clenched teeth with frightening brown eyes directed on the door.

The witch was not fazed by Anna's plea, and she directed the guards toward the entrance, the screams becoming clearer and louder as they approached. They quickly reached the door frame and entered, the room opening up before them like the mouth of a grave. The stench in here was even worse than in the cell, and even Octavia seemed a little distressed by it. It smelled of blood, sweat, and rot. One could feel the pain in the very air of the room.

"Stop your work for a moment," the sordid hag commanded the agents, harshly.

The undaunted operatives ceased their tortures immediately, obviously out of fear of the person who had issued the order. For the first time in what seemed like ages, the terrible cries of anguish subsided. Octavia drew close to the bounded specimen, who was heaving in deep breaths and coughing up some blood. For the moment, he didn't even seem aware of his surroundings; he stared at a fixed point above him without looking around or moving. The witch drew her crooked, dark finger across his strong jaw line and smiled wickedly. Turning to face Anna again, she croaked out a mocking laugh, as her lips curved into a taunting sneer.

"Haven't you got anything to say to him?"

Those cold words pierced her soul...Well whatever was left of it.

"I..." Anna released a shaky exhale, that did little to ease her nerves. She did her utmost to remain calm and felt her heart build enough courage to face him. The metallic chrome plates of his bionic arm caught her disheveled reflection; she hardly looked human enough to settle her tear filled brown eyes on the illusion of a ghost. He was unresponsive to her soothing presence, his pale blue eyes glazed with milky film of lingering anguish. His full lips chapped with flecks of blood as he tried to speak, but all that manage to escape from his raw throat was harsh and forced out wheeze, and breathed noisily.

"Who are you?"he slurred, his voice damaged from the dryness of the stale heat permeating the room. He winced, and sealed his eyes shut from the harsh light pouring over his exposed and slick muscles. His lips curled into a feral grimace. "Why did you come here..."

"I wanted to see you again." Anna sobbed, reaching her shaky hand towards the Winter Soldier. Surprisingly, no one stopped her, and while she knew that couldn't be a good sign, she didn't let the thought deter her. Her graceful fingers finally made contact with the firm muscles of his flexing right arm, and she let herself soak in all the details of his rigid touch. He was strong and steady, even in the midst of such terrible pain. A tear slipped over her soiled cheek, and she let her hand wander up to the Soldier's tensed face.

For a brief moment, time stood still. Anna gazed into the deep blue eyes of the one she loved, losing herself in them. For that second, she was not trapped in the vile bonds of Hydra. She was free, soaring in the pale blue sky of a clear day, no cloud or shadow in sight to dim her joy. Her fingers brushed aside the sloppy and long brown strands of hair obscuring part of James' cheek, and she whispered the truth without a thought to the despair all around her.

"You know me," Anna breathed.

She bit her lip, leaning forward to brush his rakish bangs off his drenched brow. "You've been hurt," she said, her voice breaking. "It's all going to be alright, we're together now." She heaved out, trying to suppress the flow of tears blurring her eyes. "Everything is going to be fine."

The Winter Solider starting muttering a gibberish of disjointed Russian words, timidly. "I know you," he panted out as his ghostly blue eyes burned with livid tears and his rigid metal hand shot to Anna's frail forearm, crunching the bones with a constricting squeeze as she yelp against the numbness plaguing in her veins, the fist curled itself over a tender part of her arm, mechanism whirred with strain of its task, bruising over her pale skin, the metal digits scraped as he tried to crush her bones and she screamed out in pain.

"The love between you two is moving," the witch laughed cruelly, eyeing Anna with a look of victory in her darkened eyes. "The Winter Soldier belongs to HYDRA," she ground out, glaring at the assassin before her. "In a matter of hours, he will not even know you from any other person. He is a weapon, not a man. Your love is a waste of emotion that has betrayed you to your death."

"No," Anna cried, trying to wrench her arm free of the Winter's Soldier's iron grasp. "Soldier, don't leave me, please!"

Her brown eyes filled with emotion, begging the Soldier to hear her desperate pleas. With her free arm, she took his right hand and clasped it, knowing that such an act could result in further injury to herself. She didn't care. "James, remember me!"

He narrowed his eyes to her dainty hand encased over his flesh and bones. He traced her blemished knuckles with a cold touch of metal. She interlocked her fingers in the spaces of his own, and he started to shiver. Little tremors of his nerves quivering under his slick muscles like tiny aftershocks from the trauma and pain his shackled body had experienced. He blinked the haze out of his vision, and lifting his head slight up, as he looked at her, really stared with deep sorrow when her angelic face hovered over him. She was dream; coffee irises filled of life and trust, full lips painted with the shade of crimson, and silky chocolate hair that draped over her ivory features. He always look to her when the darkness consumed him; when he needed liberation out of his mindless deliriums, She was life.

"Anna," he mumbled against her, his voice weak and more lackluster than before, but she was mere inches from him, she could easily hear her name ghost from his bruised lips. "You're beautiful..." he whispered.

Anna smiled in spite of the moment, letting more tears fall. She pressed her palm against James' hand and tried to give him some warmth; he was so cold. A nod from the witch caused the guards to step forward to grab her, and before they could, Anna hurriedly leaned forward. She pressed her lips against her beloved's brow, kissing him farewell.

"Never forget," she said in his ear, her heart was breaking. He felt every word. "Day will come to us someday."

A hand violently pulled Anna back by her mussed hair, and she cried out, extending her hands toward James in one last desperate attempt to keep from being parted from him. Her fingers brushed against the Soldier's hand one last time before she was out of reach.

"Begin your work again," Octavia snapped at the operatives, "The director wants you to step it up. HYDRA's asset has incurred some additional punishment because of the way his little brat has acted."

Horror clenched his belly, confusion and rage. His lips broke apart as he unleashed ragged cries of heartbreak. "She belongs to me!"

Thrashing his body weight against the chair; he manged to rip his metal arm out of the hinges of the clasp. The plates disconnected from the wires, and his straggly dark hair fell against his hardened jaw. "Anna," he growled out, breathlessly. His eyes widened with realization. She looked at him, really looked at him with the undeniable truth welled in her rich brown eyes. He searched for his resolve in the shadows of the room, avoiding the sinister gaze of the witch whom threatened to take her away from him. His heart was beckoning out to her like a lifeline, as he tried to grasp her as the tempest of swirling red devoured his thoughts. His lips curled as he pleaded in a harsh breath, fearing for her life. "I completed the mission...I did what you told me to do."

The steel doors creaked opened, and the director stepped inside with smug grin etched over his aging features. His cold and passive blue eyes stared him down with disappointment as he approached the chair in hauntingly steps. His was tall, shoulders at ease from tension and his lips held a firm line as he narrowed his gaze at the Winter Soldier. Still, this man of the high position of order displayed no hesitation under the fierce gaze of his asset. Brushing the strands of his ginger-blonde hair from his forehead, he halted in his strides and settled his sharp eyes on Octavia. "You know I think its best that you this lovely young woman here for awhile before we begin the direct approach of extraction." He spared his glance at Anna, placing his hand on her pallid cheek as she trembled with an shaky exhales. "You were meant to be a comfort to lure him back out of the pain. Submission was the law that you agreed to follow when your father sent here."

Anna felt her throat tightened. Come on, don't allow him to break you. Maybe there was a chance for her life to become spared. Unfortunately, HYDRA wasn't merciful. Punishment was always their reckoning against defiance. He was close enough to catch her shifts of emotions. His gaze narrowed as he waited for her to answer him. She swallowed and took her stand, "It wasn't my choice to spend a life here." she felt-something-from the depths of her throat, erupting at the center of her chest. "You forced my father to something he want to do. At the end of deal you ordered your men to open fire and kill him right in front of me and the thing that prevent me from gutting her lungs-my sister."

Something-a low, drawn out rumble of a sound. An uncompressed growl.

Darkly as she stood, Anna twisted her bloodless lips into a smirk and shot him a penetrating glare with her eyes. She edged a step closer; feeling the urges to kill him right there in front of everyone. She had changed from a meek and flinching woman into a dangerous and unpredictable animal-a cat-, unhinged and cornered. For the shortest of a second the director saw a flash of murder in her eyes.

"Your compliance is not acceptable," the director admonished, inching a step back, and nodded as Octavia seized her wrist from behind, twisting the limb against her back. "Your father was in the way. He needed to be removed before certain secrets ended up in our enemies hands. He was a good agent, but he had weakness." He stiffed his lips, and traced his thumb across her chin. "Like all good men they sacrifice everything to protect the things they love." He said, looking down disappointingly at the Winter Soldier.

"Leave him out of this. I'm the one who deserves punishment." Anna returned through clenched teeth. Octavia yanked her hair, jerking her head ups as she released a small yelp.

"This world is a dark place." The director said withdrawing back and he moved to the table. He opened a tattered covered book, flipping through crisped pages of ancient Druid text. "Sometimes to build a new world out of darkness you need make a deal with the devil." He added, ripping out a page, and holding it against the light. "You have choice to make my dear," Anna looked at him with enraged eyes. "This text holds a power that can be unleashed with simple words. It was made to devour souls of men during the Dark Ages. We have acquired the books from tombs of the beholders of this force of miracle. We have used it on a few unworthy captives...You're brother in-law David didn't contain enough strength to handle the incantations."

Anna shook head, disbelieving his words. "You're lying!"

With that, the director snapped his fingers, and within seconds of the commanding echo the doors opened and two operatives dragged in a tarp; dropping it at in the middle of the room. He walked casually to the area, crouched down and pulled it open, revealing charred skeletal remains of a human body. David's body. Anna tore her glazed eyes away from the horrific sight, and focused them on the Winter Soldier, as the assassin shifted in the chair, feeling a sense of reverence hit him. Those deadened and empty eyes held tears as he stared back at her. "I promise you that it will quick for her sister. A simple torture that will truly break her. The choice is in your hands."

It has always been about choice with her life, she couldn't allow Ella to die, no matter how much she loved sister. And she knew that she would be enslaved, condemned and alone. At least there was a chance for her to freedom. And for James, she knew he wasn't going to be a puppet on strings forever. He would have a life, maybe not a normal life, but still a life. Time slowed as she entered at impasse, and just stared into the Winter Soldier's pale blue eyes, before drawing at a shuddering breath. "I'll do whatever I can to keep Ella spared from this..."

The Winter Soldier stared deeply at her, as tears streaked over his bruised and ashed cheeks. "Anna," he breathed, heartbreak with held in his blue eyes. "Don't do this."

"It's my choice." she said and then was dragged away. Everything was being swallowed into black mass of dread. Anna listened to him screaming out her name as he was detained, and thrown hard against the chair. A dull pain entered her heart. She never called back to him. She loved him. That's all he needed to know. Not through her voice, but through her straying tears.

_My choice._

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><p>The coldness of the rain woke the black feline from the torrents of memory as her frontal paw caressed over the wording engraved in the stone. She hadn't let herself touch the marker that held her sister's name like this until now, hadn't let herself think about her past for a long time. It was her choice to sacrifice her life in order to save Ella and her niece. Her promise.<p>

Warm tears welled inside the deep pools of ember; the cat hung her head low, fighting against the conflict of despair and hate. Her paw clenched into a fist, as he parted her jaws and spoke with a mournful whisper of defeat. "I'm sorry," A confession pierced from her throat. "I tried to find a way but I was not strong enough." She slammed his eyes shut, constricting the tears under her lids. "It should have been me…" She sobbed, rubbing her muzzle against the rough surface of the gave. "I did my best...I guess it wasn't enough to save you."

Suddenly, Anna's thoughts were distracted by the sound of movement. The cat did not run as her instincts told her; something rooted her to the spot and refused to allow her to leave. She turned her gaze and focused her keen eyes on the source of the disturbance, trying to see what was approaching through the falling rain.

The figure soon came into clear view, and Anna was surprised to find that it was a small girl, too young to be out in the rain all by herself. Yet here she was, walking slowly through the cemetery. As the little girl neared the stone-still feline, Anna made out some of the arrivals' condition. The child had a tattered shall wrapped around her shivering arms in a failing attempt to keep out the chill. Her dark blonde hair was wet and dripping with rain, and her feet were tied with cloth; no shoes to grace them.

The girl did not see Anna at first, but she was apparently headed for the grave. Her sweet, quiet voice soon called out, though Anna could not see anyone to whom the girl was speaking.

"Hi, Grandmother," the girl began in a light, carefree tone. "Sorry I haven't come to see you in so long. I was looking for lunch, and it took longer than I..." the child's eyes spotted the cat, and her face brightened into a wide smile. "Hello, there," she beamed. "Are you here to see my grandmother too?"

Anna felt something familiar in the little girl's blue eyes and soft face. She cautiously stepped closer, and the child leaned down and extended a hand. "Can I pet you?"

Anna made no protest, and the girl's hand stroked her wet fur with a kind touch. "You're cold," the child said with concern, "I'll wrap you up."

The girl sat with her legs crossed beside the grave and pulled the cat into her arms, putting the cloak around the animal and cuddling it close. "This is where my grandmother is," she said with reserve in her voice; patting the cat's head and pointing to the grave stone. "I sometimes come to see her when I'm lonely. She's a good listener."

"So am I, little one," Anna purred somberly as she nuzzled her drench body close to her grandniece.

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><p><strong>AN : A huge thanks goes to Thalion Estel for being amazing as always with this chapter. Another big thanks to all the readers and followers. Next chapter will have lots more Steve and Bucky bonding and some HYDRA villains. Enjoy and thank you.**


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